Mom Genes: Inside the New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct
(Gallery, $28)
“Mothers are different from other people,” said Emily Bobrow in The Wall Street Journal. In her “fascinating” new book, science journalist Abigail Tucker dives into the relatively new field of “mom science” to detail how women are physiologically transformed by pregnancy and early motherhood. The typical mother, Tucker says, experiences “a cellular-level revolution that rebuilds the female brain.” Mothers become better at interpreting facial expressions, more wary of strangers, and calmer than others in moments of stress. The downside: What women refer to as “mommy brain” is real: Four out of five new mothers report cognitive problems—primarily struggles with memory—and those issues can’t all be explained as effects of sleep deprivation.
“Tucker’s argument is not a subtle one,” said Barbara King in NPR.org. She shares studies showing that mothers experience a dramatic reduction in gray matter while simultaneously activating new neural pathways. She attributes such changes to a “monomaniacal” focus on the baby’s health. A mother herself, Tucker is often jokey and self-deprecating when offering such thoughts, but “a view of new mothers as brain-compromised isn’t a cute meme; it’s damaging to women who may have to fight a tide of suspicion about their competence.” How bad can these cognitive effects be? Tucker eventually reveals that the brains of adoptive mothers and gay parents change