REVIEWS
Publishers Weekly, starred review: “Surprising and enlightening, this should be required reading for all caregivers.”
Library Journal, starred review: “Conaboy’s book isn’t a parenting manual but rather a work of pop science jam-packed with neurobiological research; it’s both fascinating and surprisingly readable… Highly recommended."
Portland Press Herald: “Conaboy deftly summarizes the results of animal and human studies, noting their limitations, distilling their implications and gathering the threads that connect them to weave a compelling tapestry.”
The Sunday Times (of London): “Mother Brain feels like a book that will inspire today’s new parents: socially alert, inclusive, kind. There are places where the science is still evolving, but Conaboy at least promises a new route through the parenting wilds.”
Toronto Star, by Emma Teitel: “The newly released book ‘Mother Brain,’ by health reporter Chelsea Conaboy, would have saved us both a world of worry had it been released two years ago; I wish I could buy a copy for every type of family expecting a baby today.”
Undark, by Elizabeth Landau: “In an approachable, down-to-earth narrative voice, Conaboy synthesizes a lot of research, interweaving technical information with personal accounts from real moms, including herself.”
PRINT & ONLINE
Slate, with Nancy Reddy: “How Babies Mess With Everybody’s Brains”
CNN, with Elissa Strauss: “Why you are not a failure as a mother”
Washington Post, with Rebecca Gale: “Is the idea of ‘maternal instinct’ a myth?”
Is My Kid the Asshole?, with Melinda Wenner Moyer: “The Deep Misogyny of the "Maternal Instinct”
In Pursuit of Clean Countertops, with Sara Peterson: How the myth of maternal instinct perpetuates the myth of the Ideal Mother
Mad Moms, with Amanda Montei: “We already know enough to act, to do better"
Write Like A Mother, with Sara Fredman: "We Don't Go Back to What We Were"
Mother Honestly, with Audrey Goodson Kingo: “Motherhood Was Never Supposed to be this Isolating”
Deník N, with Karolína Klinková (in Czech): “What does parenting do to the brain?”
Irish Examiner, with Helen O’Callaghan: “‘Something was different’: How parents’ brains change and adapt after a baby is born”
PODCAST & AUDIO
NPR’s Throughline, with Rund Abdelfatah: “Labor of Love”
NPR’s Life Kit, with Andee Tagle and artwork by LA Johnson: “Pregnant? Here’s how to deal with the new you”
Vox Unexplainable, with Byrd Pinkerton: “Expecting: Baby Brain”
Burnt Toast, with Virginia Sole-Smith: “Our Brains On Parenthood”
Doing It Right, with Pandora Sykes: “The myth of the ‘baby brain’”
No One Is Coming to Save Us, with Gloria Riviera: Is maternal instinct a myth?
Maine Calling, with Jennifer Rooks: “Myths and science of how the parental brain works”
The Motherkind Podcast with Zoe Blaskey: “Why maternal instinct is a myth”
BUY THE BOOK:
MORE PRAISE FOR MOTHER BRAIN
“An awesomely detailed and refreshingly positive review of brain science as a rich source of explanations for the often surprising, commonly bewildering, routinely criticised, experiences of parenthood … powerful, honest and reassuring. A great read for beleaguered new (and old) parents bothered about their brains.”
— Gina Rippon, neuroscientist and author of Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience that Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain
Mother Brain is a fascinating insight into a hugely complex but important topic - how a mother's brain adapts and changes when becoming a parent, and so much more. This is vital reading for anyone who wants to understand more about how and why the maternal brain changes during such an important life event. Conaboy writes it in a compelling and accessible way that will help so many people understand themselves better.
—Melissa Hogenboom, author of The Motherhood Complex
“I learned so much from Mother Brain―about neuroscience, yes. But also about pernicious mythmaking, and the vast chasm between the reductive, sexist lines we’re sold about motherhood versus the science and stories of how families are actually made, how brains and hearts and bodies are transformed by pregnancy and parenthood. Chelsea Conaboy has written a generous, engaging, deeply researched book that will change the way you think about your own parents, your children, and yourself.”
―Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad
“Mother Brain captivated me from page one. Chelsea Conaboy fearlessly pours herself into the silence surrounding the open secret of mothering and caregiving―how we are profoundly remade by it, in both beautiful and destabilizing ways.”
―Angela Garbes, author of Essential Labor and Like a Mother