Great Dads Are Made, Not Born: The Neuroscience of Fatherhood

When a woman becomes a mother, her brain physically reorganizes around the baby. We've known this for a while. What we didn't know (until recently) is that the same thing happens to dads.

Dr. Darby Saxbe is a neuroscientist and psychologist at USC, and one of the only researchers in the world scanning fathers' brains before and after they have kids. What she found: the same regions that change and streamline in new mothers change in new fathers. The more hands-on a dad is, the more pronounced those changes are.

Dr. Becky and Dr. Darby get into what "losing gray matter" actually means (it's not what it sounds like), how paternal postpartum depression shows up differently than maternal (and why it almost always goes unrecognized), and why the awkwardness of new fatherhood isn't a signal that you're wrong for the role.

Dr. Saxbe's new book is Dad Brain.

Thank you to our partners for making this episode possible:

Skylight: Get $30 off a 15-inch Skylight Calendar at myskylight.com/becky
LMNT: Get a free gift with your purchase at drinkLMNT.com/goodinside
Girl Scouts: If you have a daughter in kindergarten through 12th grade, visit girlscouts.org to learn more
Little Spoon: Get 50% off your first order at littlespoon.com/rattled with code RATTLED

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(112)

The Second Cutting of the Cord: What Actually Happens When You Go Back to Work

Twelve weeks of parental leave. Then you're back at your desk, wondering why it feels so hard. Today we’re posting an episode from Rattled, our podcast for parents of newborns and babies, because it’s...

25 Aug 42min

When Our Nervous Systems Hijack Our Parenting - Revisit

If you’ve yelled at your kid, you’re not a bad parent. You’re a good parent with an overwhelmed nervous system. In today’s revisit from the Good Inside archives, Dr. Becky breaks down the science behi...

18 Aug 21min

Why Am I Always on the Edge?

Your kid hits. Melts down the second you leave the house. Argues about everything, all day, every single day. You've tried the time-outs, the consequences, the calm-down corner. Nothing works. Why are...

11 Aug 34min

When Depression Doesn't Look Like Depression

What does depression look like? It’s not always… sadness. It can be anger. Irritability. Picking fights. Checking out. Taking risks that don't make sense. It can look, to everyone around you — includi...

4 Aug 43min

Sex? After Kids? Tell Me More, Esther Perel - Revisit

What happens when two become three, or four, or five? Who is responsible for the needs and wants of a couple when days are filled with playdates, pick-ups, and meal preps? Nights lack the erotic energ...

28 Jul 36min

Belle Burden: The Burden of Being the "Good Girl"

Belle Burden was, by her own account, the good girl. Quiet, compliant, the kid who wrote her own book report and did her homework on Friday afternoons. Then one night in the second week of the 2020 lo...

21 Jul 35min

You Are the Technology That Builds Your Child's Brain

There's a lot of noise about what AI will do to jobs. What will it do to one of the most important jobs in the world: parenting? Dr. Dana Suskind is a pediatric cochlear implant surgeon and neuroscie...

14 Jul 33min