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‘In Baby Mode’ Review

Motherhood is not always an easy task as many may perceive it to be. When nursing a baby, this is where the whole life of a mother changes due to the challenges that comes within the first few months into motherhood. Many will always complain to have changed their habits and routine just after giving birth to their firstborn baby. Just like in the article ‘In Baby Mode’ that I am going to give a review on, it talks about motherhood, adaptation, behaviour neurons and oxytocin. The article was written by Von Hopffgarten, Anna a biologist and editor at Gehim & Geist.

Starting with the objectives, the article had the objective of giving information on the routine of mothers that changes daily. To give information on how the brain adapts to internal adjustments. To give an illustration on how nerve cells change during pregnancy and lastly to give an indication of sensitization of women’s oxytocin.

First, the author starts by giving her own experience of motherhood. Her baby was not an easy she tells of how the first week into parenthood has many parents trying to fit in the baby mode. They try their best to ensure the baby is well fed, happy and comfortable. A baby does not grow overnight thus even though exhausted, parents will always wake up when their baby cries. It is funny how parents forget about the rigorous nights when they watch their babies sleeping in the morning. All this is due to the adaptations that the brain makes after a few weeks of giving birth. During and after pregnancy, the mother’s body is always filled with hormones that is; hormone oxytocin, estrogen and prolactin. These hormones help to stimulate lactation.

The author goes further and tells us how during pregnancy the nerve cells undergo some changes. According to research this cells grow as the pregnancy proceeds on. The development of nerves and growth of hormones is always in preparation for motherhood. The author tells us that it is the role of the mother to struggle to determine what is happening to a baby when crying; it may be hunger, fatigue, or stomach pains. We are told in the article that those women who have high oxytocin levels, tend to respond empathetically to their children. The oxytocin also helps in sensitization and making of emotions which in turn helps the mother to interact with the baby in terms of motivation and empathy. According to the author, it is all by the power of oxytocin that the mother interacts with the baby favorably. If there are low levels of oxytocin, the parent may end up depressed raising a sad or an inactive baby.

The author then gives a conclusion and a summary that after birth, the brain of the mother reorients to take care of the baby through the help of hormone oxytocin and the nerve cells. The neural nerves in the brain also get to transform structurally, that is shrinking of the grey matter in the frontal and the temporal lobes region.

The article is useful to both mothers and adults who are yet to become moms. To me I found the article useful in the sense that it gets to prepare one psychologically about motherhood that is; the experiences and how to cope with it. It is not always easy, this is what every parent needs to know in order to be in preparation and not receiving the hardships that comes with motherhood in shock. The article’s explanation on how the brain work to adapt to mother hood is very important since we all need to know the reason behind every reaction in our body. Not all of us are scientists thus the explanations help everyone in relating with her previous or future experiences.

There are somethings that the article fails to explain, we only get to know about the difficulties and how the body adapts during pregnancy. Future modifications to the article may be explaining the things that the mother finds easy to do besides the hardships of postpartum. Also, the article only gives details of how the mother adapts after pregnancy, the change of routine and the working of oxytocin. It does not tell us what happens after the period of nursing the baby that is after one year. I think this is the future things I would research on to add information besides the one provided by the article.

Conclusively, the article gives a good explanation of motherhood. I get to learn that one is not alone and the body will always adopt with the help of hormones. After a short period, one’s routine changes and it becomes her ‘normal’. We all need to get prepared for the period since it comes with a lot of sacrifices and hardships.

Reference

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