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BABIES WHO DO NOT CRY:
DRIVE THEIR MOTHERS CRAZY
A Canadian researcher James Swain, at Yale University's Child Study Centre in
the United States has found the brain activity of new parents is strikingly
similar to what is seen in patients who have been diagnosed with
obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dr. Swain and a team of researchers at Yale used
functional magnetic resonance imaging to look at the brain activity of 25
couples two to four weeks after they had a baby. They took brain images of the
new moms and dads when they heard a tape of their infant crying, or looked at a
picture of their newborn. The data analysis is preliminary, Dr. Swain says. But
he and his colleagues found that the brain areas activated were those important
for motivation, reward, anxiety and the learning and refinement of habits. Here
is the hilight of the data collected from this and other studies:
- The brain activity in new parents likely led to
the kind of behaviour many new mothers reported in the study, including the
compulsive need to check on infants.
- Some of the same circuitry is widely believed to be overactive in the
brains of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder -- people who can't rid
their minds of intrusive worries - such as to wash their hands repeatedly or
worry constantly about being hit by a car or some other disaster.
- It is amazing that some of the same circuits did
light up in the study subjects. The mothers, however, had a much more
pronounced, or intense response than the fathers.
- Not that new parents are mentally ill. No reasonable person would say
it is an actual mental illness to be worrying about your baby, Instead, some
bits of the brain that have evolved to help us become good parents may be
abnormally active in those who suffer from certain kinds of mental illness.
- The neurological, hormonal and other physical
changes that coincide with becoming a parent indicate that parents are
biologically primed for their role.
- In evolutionary history, parents who fussed over their babies probably
had more offspring who grew to adulthood, so those genes were passed on to the
next generation. In fact, in obsessive-compulsive disorder, it may be those
very networks that are malfunctioning.
- It makes sense that new parents, and mothers in
particular, have special brain mechanisms to help them protect the huge
investment they have made in carrying and delivering a baby.
- Mothers with young babies aren't stressed out by the same kinds of
things that would normally bother them. They are focused so intently that they
respond only to stresses that would affect their parenting and the safety of
their babies or other children.
To continue enlightening YOURSELF with more of the above precious knowledge
about experiencing parenting without ever being taught about it please click on
the article by ANNE McILROY in Canadian
Globe and Mail or click on the next line to
read it on YOUR favourite WEBSITE OF KNOWLEDGE - PVAF........
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Mindset in mothers of
newborn infants
known as "window-thinking":
for the total safety of their babies.....
By ANNE McILROY
Canadian
Globe and Mail: Saturday, March 27, 2004 - Page
F5
Many parents, including Sophia Anglin in Toronto, look back and wonder what
came over them in the first few weeks after they had a baby.
"She slept so much. I was always staring at her to make sure she was breathing,
or sneaking in to listen to her heartbeat," says Ms. Anglin, a bus driver with
the Toronto Transit Commission, recalling her first period at home with Vanessa,
now six months old.
Other parents report pinching and poking sleeping babies every few minutes to
make sure they're still alive, or compulsively scrubbing their children's faces
and adjusting their clothes. Friends notice their inability to talk about
anything else.
It's not their fault. If they seem fixated and obsessive, it's because,
clinically, they are. Their brains have been rewired by parenthood.
A Canadian researcher has found the brain activity of new parents is strikingly
similar to what is seen in patients who have been diagnosed with
obsessive-compulsive disorder.
James Swain, at Yale University's Child Study Centre in the United States, says
the brain activity he observed in new parents likely led to the kind of
behaviour many new mothers reported in the study, including the compulsive need
to check on infants.
Dr. Swain and a team of researchers at Yale used functional magnetic resonance
imaging to look at the brain activity of 25 couples two to four weeks after they
had a baby. They took brain images of the new moms and dads when they heard a
tape of their infant crying, or looked at a picture of their newborn.
The data analysis is preliminary, Dr. Swain says. But he and his colleagues
found that the brain areas activated were those important for motivation,
reward, anxiety and the learning and refinement of habits.
Some of the same circuitry is widely believed to be overactive in the brains of
patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder -- people who can't rid their minds
of intrusive worries, Dr. Swain says. They tend to wash their hands repeatedly
or worry constantly about being hit by a car or some other disaster.
"It is amazing that some of the same circuits did light up in our parent
subjects," says Dr. Swain, who presented his preliminary data at a scientific
conference last year. The mothers, however, had a much more pronounced, or
intense response than the fathers.
Not that new parents are mentally ill. "No reasonable person would say it is an
actual mental illness to be worrying about your baby," Dr. Swain says. Instead,
some bits of the brain that have evolved to help us become good parents may be
abnormally active in those who suffer from certain kinds of mental illness.
He is one of a growing number of researchers investigating the neurological,
hormonal and other physical changes that coincide with becoming a parent. They
are finding evidence that parents are biologically primed for their role.
In evolutionary history, parents who fussed over their babies probably had more
offspring who grew to adulthood, so those genes were passed on to the next
generation. In fact, in obsessive-compulsive disorder, it may be those very
networks that are malfunctioning.
"Somehow, the wires get crossed in OCD, but maybe our knowledge of OCD can help
us understand what parents experience," Dr. Swain says.
Learning about the physiological basis for this kind of behaviour may help
prepare people for what to expect when they become parents, says Dr. Swain, who
trained as a child psychiatrist in Toronto and Ottawa before moving to the
United States to accept a postdoctoral research position. Perhaps it can also be
used to help parents who are depressed or otherwise unable to provide the
optimal level of fussing, he says.
It makes sense that new parents, and mothers in particular, have special brain
mechanisms to help them protect the huge investment they have made in carrying
and delivering a baby, says Claire-Dominique Walker, a researcher in McGill
University's department of psychiatry.
She is investigating a mindset in mothers of newborn infants known as
"window-thinking."
The theory -- based on work in rats -- is that mothers with young babies aren't
stressed out by the same kinds of things that would normally bother them. They
are focused so intently that they respond only to stresses that would affect
their parenting and the safety of their babies or other children.
Dr. Swain would like to extend his work to grandparents. Many new parents report
that grandma and grandpa also become consumed with worry over the new
grandchild.
"It may be like priming a pump," he says, "which is more easily switched on
again when your children have children."
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