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Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

bbc.com

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Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#111

Post by mistermann »

cli wrote: post #75
oconnor0 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many mothers do not change lifestyle. I'm not sure what you mean. Babies necessitate a change of lifestyle if only because they demand to be fed in the middle of the night.

There are cultures where the grandparents or other relatives mostly take care of the children while the mother works (some parts of China), and there are people who pay for nannies to take care of the children at night.

Well sure, but there is certainly a massive change in lifestyle for 99% of mothers even if they continue working.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#112

Post by lostlogin »

Does the percentage of mothers who were getting fertility treatment make this actually representative? The pain and suffering that those who struggle to have children followed (presumably!) by happiness when they have a child must have some effect?

The average age of the participants also seems high to me, but a brief search for an average age for having a first child put this study cohort only slightly over that - surprising to me at least.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#113

Post by mistermann »

Frondo wrote: post #84
dsacco wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't want this to come across as rude, because I don't mean to single you out or invalidate your experience (or your contribution to discussion!). That said, what is the purpose of offering your anecdotal experience if you acknowledge that it is an n=1 datapoint? I understand that it's in good faith to acknowledge that your personal experience doesn't offer any statistical rigor to an interpretation of the…

Dsacco, I want to praise you for writing the best response to the casual "my experience doesn't match some study X" that I've ever seen.

Except if you review, my experience did match the study, or at least the article.

The uniquely human behavior that takes place in discussions on topics such this is often as interesting as the original article itself.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#114

Post by dsacco »

mistermann wrote: post #77
dsacco wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't want this to come across as rude, because I don't mean to single you out or invalidate your experience (or your contribution to discussion!). That said, what is the purpose of offering your anecdotal experience if you acknowledge that it is an n=1 datapoint? I understand that it's in good faith to acknowledge that your personal experience doesn't offer any statistical rigor to an interpretation of the…

> That said, what is the purpose of offering your anecdotal experience if you acknowledge that it is an n=1 datapoint? I'm not sure I understand your question...the grandparent of my comment noted an aspect of the article, someone replied to that casting doubt, and I replied (that fwiw) I had observed similar behavior. Historically one couldn't draw conclusions without an exhaustive study, does that now also apply to…

> Historically one couldn't draw conclusions without an exhaustive study, does that now also apply to anecdotes on forums? I've read hundreds of anecdotes on HN so far this morning, are all of those inappropriate?

In a word, yes.

I'd push back on the word "inappropriate" specifically though. Whether they are inappropriate is a matter of context; in the context of a discussion about a study published in Nature Neuroscience, an anecdote that supports a causal relationship between the research and unsubstantiated interpretations of the data is inappropriate, in my opinion.

I think the disconnect here is a difference of approach - I am approaching this discussion as one of analysis, while there are other commenters approaching this as a friendly conversation. There's no right or wrong there, but I feel compelled to point out that the latter approach is how biased data frequently becomes parroted without real support in the original research.

In your original comment, you mentioned that your wife exhibited a significant personality change that appears to match the article. You also point out that you realize this is an anecdote. However, there is research[1][2] that demonstrates people will begin to internalize what they continually read, regardless of whether or not they know it is not true. In a discussion about a loaded topic such as pregnancy, where people are commiserating with each other or exchanging anecdotes, my claim is that it is not merely enough to acknowledge that the anecdote doesn't represent datum. Rather, that will not do anything to prevent the anecdote from having a positive impact on the audience's impression of the research (positive here used in the dialectic sense).

Of course, I'll admit I'm a stickler for this. Whether or not this is a point worth making in subsequent threads is up to the HN upvote/downvote roll :)

________________________

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8366418

2. http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/xge0...

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#115

Post by DanBC »

lostlogin wrote: post #112

Does the percentage of mothers who were getting fertility treatment make this actually representative? The pain and suffering that those who struggle to have children followed (presumably!) by happiness when they have a child must have some effect? The average age of the participants also seems high to me, but a brief search for an average age for having a first child put this study cohort only slightly over that - s…

> followed (presumably!) by happiness

Baby blues and postnatal depression are common, even among people who've been through fertility treatment. Indeed, those people may find it harder to seek help because of the assumptions that they must be happy after all that struggle.

(Also, about 1 in 10 men have postnatal depression.)

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#116

Post by elptacek »

actuallyalys wrote: post #94
nklyn wrote: post #81

Birth control pills boost the same hormones, I wonder if they would have similar affects on the brain.

Pregnancy raises at least estrogen and progesterone to something like ten times the usual menstrual cycle peak, so I doubt the effect size is comparable. Also, I think pregnancy affects a broad range of hormones, not just the handful in birth control.

Oxytocin levels also increase. That would be the first one I'd test for -- if there was a correlation between oxytocin levels and extent of grey matter loss.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#117

Post by kaitai »

novia wrote: post #3

Brain differences between the sexes are real, but we should interpret them with caution.

Note that this study shows significant and multi-year structural changes between women who have experienced pregnancy and birth and women who did not conceive or give birth during the same time period. This is not a study that is primarily about differences between the sexes.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#118

Post by 20years »

akud wrote: post #98
radicalbyte wrote: post #55

Anecdotally I can say it has a large effect on the male brain too. The lack of sleep and time changes you. You get ruthless against time stealers and start seeing 6 hours as a nice long sleep. Full disclosure : I've had about 8hr sleep in 3 days,two sick kids...

People underestimate the effect of extreme sleep deprivation. For the first three months of my daughter's life, we didn't sleep for more than two hours at a time. The effect was profound - I was having auditory hallucinations, was paranoid, etc. It was only after she started sleeping through the night that I understood it was due to the lack of sleep.

I experienced this too with my daughter. She had colic so we got very little sleep for 3 months straight. I thought I was going crazy due to hallucinations and paranoia. All that went away when I was able to get at least 6 hours straight sleep per night.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#119

Post by kaitai »

dsacco wrote: post #92
fs111 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please recalibrate your irony detector. Thank you.

Detected; I reject that it's relevant to the discussion, and I'm disappointed it's the top comment. Lifestyle changes aren't relevant to the research presented in the study. What would be relevant is contrary evidence of hormonal changes in males after their spouses undergo pregnancy, or structural alterations in the brain. Of course each parent is impacted by literally taking care of an infant, but what does that ha…

You know what's super-interesting? Although it's deeply under-researched and still subject to a lot of argument, there's mounting evidence that men going through a partner's pregnancy experience significant hormonal changes as well. Papers like [1] and [2] are really preliminary (small sample sizes, etc) and don't fully agree, but both show these hormonal changes in men going through pregnancy with a partner. How much is simply the stress of a life change? How much is couvade, or "sympathetic pregnancy"? How much is evolutionarily adaptive? No one knows yet, but it's an interesting piece to the puzzle: apparently the lower testosterone, higher cortisol, and changes in prolactin and estradiol that expectant fathers experience don't have the same neuroanatomical effects as the changes women experience in pregnancy.

Hormones are really interesting!

[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.22670/abstra... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11393496

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#120

Post by lostlogin »

DanBC wrote: post #115
lostlogin wrote: post #112

Does the percentage of mothers who were getting fertility treatment make this actually representative? The pain and suffering that those who struggle to have children followed (presumably!) by happiness when they have a child must have some effect? The average age of the participants also seems high to me, but a brief search for an average age for having a first child put this study cohort only slightly over that - s…

> followed (presumably!) by happiness Baby blues and postnatal depression are common, even among people who've been through fertility treatment. Indeed, those people may find it harder to seek help because of the assumptions that they must be happy after all that struggle. (Also, about 1 in 10 men have postnatal depression.)

This is true, but two years down the track one would hope this had passed. I know that long term health problems do occur but I don't think anyone would describe them as post-natal depression or baby blues at that point.
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