Shrinking brains of new mothers

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http://www.healthline.com/health-news/pregnancy-effects-on-brain#1

With my daughter turning one month old yesterday, I thought this article was relevant and interesting. The study shows that gray matter in the brain of new mothers actually decreases, though this doesn't happen for second time mothers or first time fathers. Although this may seem to come off as a negative effect it actually does more good than harm. They claim that this reduction of gray matter actually make the areas of reduction more efficient, specifically in reading body language. They continue to say that this helps mothers understand the body language of their newborns. They noted that there was no change in memory and negative side effects of being newborn mothers is most likely due to sleep deprivation and or stress.

As this was originally published in Nature Neuroscience(a long standing publisher) it is likely to be a well conducted experiment that is easily applicable to understand just one of the many physiological changed to the body involving childbirth. There seems to be a Negative stigma surrounding childbirth in many aspects that are pretty well unfounded so it is refreshing to see something positive and well done.

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