Mother Brain

Before Chelsea Conaboy gave birth to her first child, she anticipated the joy of holding her newborn son, the endless stream of dirty nappies and the sleepless nights. What she didn't expect was how different she would feel. It wasn't simply the extraordinary demands of this new role, but a shift in self - as deep as it was disorienting. In truth, something was changing: her brain.

In recent years, scientists have discovered that the surge of hormones at childbirth sets off both structural and functional changes in the mother's brain designed to meet baby's basic needs in those tenuous first days, and then prepares her for a longer period of learning how to parent. These changes are so dramatic that researchers can easily sort the women who have had a pregnancy from those who haven't. And the emerging science is providing key insights into the wide-ranging experience of motherhood - from the intensity of emotions to the unexpected upsides to its larger role in species survival. The story that exists in the science today is far more meaningful than the idea that mothers spring into being by instinct. Yet science has remained almost entirely absent from the public conversation about what it means to be a mother.

Weaving the latest neuroscience and social psychology together with new reporting, Conaboy delves into the myths and realities of the postpartum brain, including generations of scientific neglect and societal pressures that have perpetuated a narrow, romanticised view. Mother Brain forms a powerful new narrative - one that will reframe the conversation about parenthood.