Good morning, Mother? Sphere good morning bad, conical sphere of the source.
Welcome to a new episode of Good Morning Mother awaits this podcast in which
we bring you closer to themes, people, issues, challenges, projects,
initiatives and books. You know that here we like books that will always give
us a different vision, something new, to help us to face this exciting
task of parenting in a better way, a more positive way and, moreover,
a central purpose that these podcasts have is to make you spend some time
as entertaining as possible and that, in passing, you learn something. How
is the case that we are dealing with today, that it is a person,
a subject, a question, a project or a cover- up,
something that I already knew months ago, but that has been made a little
begging for why life, because things happen and in this case books pass.
Which has arrived in the form of a book, the opportunity to interview Susana
Carmona, whom I will welcome just to start the podcast. Welcome to Susana
first, hello Monica. Thank you so much for inviting me, thank you
so much for getting close that besides, I know you' re on a
busy schedule, how you' re living this release of your creature. And
of course, it' s up to you to schedule the truth, but
you saved us a little while and I really appreciate it. Yeah, yeah,
not for me a pleasure. I' m actually enjoying it, but
it' s true that it' s like when you have a child that
you think the key moment is childbirth and not then all the interviews also come
and it' s stressful super ines, but at the same time very fun.
It is a crucial moment, because it is in which we have to
make known the result of a long time, months, years of work and,
in your case, in addition, something that has a significance for what
for our community, in fact, for mothers for fatherhood, for science,
that I am very excited to bring here to podcast, because it seems that
motherhood is sometimes something of a second, as it is not worth dedicating great
headlines to it. He is given more headlines to a football match than to
maternity issues, and it seems like he always stays at home and suddenly meets
us. All of a sudden I say that we can find that there is
relevance and importance to discoveries and scientific works like yours that we are going to
talk about now regarding motherhood, in addition to motherhood and pregnancy in the center,
because it is something to celebrate. Susana, first things first, first
things first, yes, yes, the truth. I am also super happy
about science, because in society it seems that it mattered little, but on
a scientific level it also seems that it has gone completely unnoticed so far,
and I think it has a lot to do also that there are many publishers,
many more women publishers, and that they value these processes that are so
decisive in the life of a human being. What' s his name,
indeed, and now you' ll see a little, what we' re
talking about, but first we' re going to introduce Susana. Susana Carmona,
doctor of psychology and doctor of neuroscience. He has been trained in universities
such as the Unit, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Columbia University in New
York, in the United States, and Harvard University in Massachusetts, United States.
He currently leads the neuromaternal imaging research group at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in
Madrid. Its main line of study focuses on characterizing brain changes that accompany pregnancy
and motherhood. She has led several national and international projects and is the author,
in addition to half a hundred scientific publications in high- impact journals,
including Nature Reviews, Nate or Science and Nature Narost, and is the creator
of the account or you can find it on Instagram, which is where everything
that happens in the world seems to be, like maternal neurote. There you
can find on his account. But Susana, how wonderful, that pregnancy,
that motherhood, that everything comes together, that science is dedicated and gets into
something like this and that, moreover, and this seems to me very important,
that science and the consequences of scientific work and research reach us in the
population. So let' s say common general to the people. It is
no longer in the form of a book that is called neuromaternal, that has
published very little without ecuanon and that I celebrate very much, that I had
a lot of desire to read and that I have loved, but with capital
letters. Thank you, thank you very much, Monica. The truth that
makes me very happy to see that you like it and that it is having
so much acceptance of the book, really make me very, very, very
happy. I think that all because in the end, writing a book,
when you are carrying out a laboratory, you have a little girl, it
is an important sacrifice of many weekends and overtime then for me already to see
the reception that it is having and that people like you tell me that you
have loved it, already I am happy, but really happy and listen or
read the comments that you tell me that it has helped you, that you
feel identified, that you have learned a lot, that you learn to see
motherhood with other eyes. Well, it really makes me very, very happy,
really. Sincerely, yes, and furthermore, it is a great example
of how science should be made accessible, not that there really are many occasions
when we do not know what is being investigated from all the work. What
you do in an almost imperceptible way, with great sacrifice and great effort,
and which does not reach us in a tangible way. No, no,
we didn' t find out. Yeah, it was super important to me
because, like in the end, it' s a topic that you want
or doesn' t affect a lot of people and the moment we published something
directly, the press pulled it out, but of course, everyone interpreted it
in a slightly different way. So, for me it was very important to
provide my voice about what those brain changes mean, not how long they can
last, if they' re good, if they' re bad at trying
to simplify a lot what happens is that I think I don' t know
if you want me to talk about this right now, but I think it
' s important that people who have science think or at least it' s
the work they did when they' re writing, which is very difficult to
be, super accurate to keep you to a very, very, very,
very detailed standard and make that easy to understand. Then, in the end,
you always have to play a little bit with simplicity, but at the
same time not to simplify too much, but to do it, because interesting
and understandable. Of course, if not, I don' t think it
' s very important. Yeah, it' s an argument I had constantly
while I was writing the book. I didn' t have like the scientific
society I was saying. But this is, but the other one is osana,
which is good. We will explain this and then, from a base
we are already building and putting, because more details, but we have to
give a basis of what happens and whoever wants to know more can go to
scientific journals and who wants to stay at that level, unless it has that
level. Yes, because, in addition, if we talk about this a
lot during the pandemic, especially where it became very manifest or good, in
the pandemic and in any event or situation in which it takes a little bit,
there is this demand for scientific knowledge of the general population, where knowing
that it is a trial how it works, for example, the difference between
viruses and bacteria, for example, remember when I did how difficult it was
to stay. This doesn' t extend through the air. There' s
no spread of that contagion. There is such confusion many times and we have,
as a general rule, a level of scientific literacy. Well, that
way, of course, science has become so specialized that it' s impossible.
So it' s impossible to know a little bit about everything that you
can handle, but to get to a language so precise that in the end
you don' t understand. And then I also think that when you really
understand a phenomenon, you' re able to explain it very easily. Well,
that' s the hard part for me. That' s the kid
of the question. Yeah, maybe, I don' t know. I
believe that when you already in pricipio do not understand things very well, because
you stay in an aspheus, but when you really internalize them, it is
much easier to explain them with examples and, in your case, besides that
you speak of going already, in particular, to the book of a phenomenon
that every pregnant mother and already after having given birth and in the postpartum,
that phenomenon that envelops us and that is characterized by that omnesia that has been
called to that feeling that we have internalized, because I the first I have
internalized it. I' ve always lost I said that after the pregnancies r
n r d u n more. Not all of them are, I mean,
we' ve grown up with that. You' ve really grown up
with that. And yes, yes, yes, all of us, I
mean, we' ve all grown up with that idea. Then see a
little bit of all the layers that can be biologically, what cause are behind
that, psychologically, socially, that I think is very important and many times
this confirmation bias is obvious, because it allows us to see it from a
distance and, above all, to cool a little that when some moms have
to learn a lot of things and with a speed and besides, very important
things, because it depends on them that a human being survives. So seeing
a little bit of this other face that' s always hidden, like it
' s given, as a matter of fact, it' s not important
to regulate your emotions. It also seems to me a super, super difficult
task that your brain has to learn to regulate its emotions and say now you
want to sleep. But now you' re not going to sleep, because
now this is brain work, huge, huge, but we keep the anecdote,
and that happens a lot on maternity issues. Don' t keep the
anecdote, with the pseudoscience. That is why I think it was important to
bring it closer from a scientific point of view and to explain it easily,
but scientists. And furthermore, it is exapaciously because the book, in addition
to telling us the conclusions to which you are coming, because, as we
already know, this is progressing every day and science every day has new things
to say. But we are going to accompany you on this journey in which
you have embarked us with this book, in how you have been carrying out
this whole project. You have made us see, from your most personal point
of view, what it has meant for you of how you get to that
idea, how you come up with it, where it comes from. It
' s not very interesting, because it' s very impressive. Nor is
it usually seen on that side, more of the headlines of a discovery,
of a finding, of that fact, that, indeed, the brain changes
during pregnancy and not precisely for evil that we do not lose attitudes. Yeah,
that' s what cost you the most of this whole process, because
look, that' s what I' ve fought with myself the most,
because deep down I love being with people, but I' m a shy
dick and it gives me a little bit of exposure. Then I was afraid
to expose myself. But it was impossible to talk about motherhood and not talk
about it. And I think, on the other hand, that connecting with
people from the most human point of view helps to accompany you in the process.
Not that I said, because I put on the literature and made a
longitudinal cut design is that it really went out like that, it came out
with a conversation. Then everyone can accompany and feel identified in this process that
of creating a scientific idea and seeing that in the end, because almost the
best ideas arise from personal interest and conversations outside the laboratory. Then in the
lab they profile. But many, many ideas are born of very personal stories
and above all I am seeing it a lot in female researchers. There are
very good women researchers who are studying the effects of hormonal treatments or oral contraceptives,
because they have had problems when the work makes the dose or some mental
disturbance related to them. I' m sorry I' m an ambulance,
but I don' t know if you can hear it. But then,
of course, she has won, yes or for example, women researchers who
have struggled to be diagnosed in the methosis or women who have later found themselves
in the phase. That is, they all come from a personal interest or
a personal history, and that makes science go beyond a job. We'
re all very much involved. A lot of sorority among the researchers who are
now leading this Woman' s Braine Health to be able to make further progress
on these issues. And so is mine. On the one hand, the
research came from a personal anecdote. But then it' s impossible to talk
about motherhood without talking about your motherhood. He' s sneaking in. He
' s sneaking in. He' s sneaking in and at first I tell
you he' s pretty clean and then I say look it' s done,
if that' s what comes out of me, then he' s
gonna stay there. And this, to the point of what you comment,
that now what is being researched around women, thanks in part because you are
many women there that has made it possible for me to do just now has
been able to reach, for example, your research, the research that you
are calling also on your team, since now we can suddenly be talking about
menstruation, menopause, process, osis, megally processes, because what has happened
that we get to that situation, Well, in fact, what has happened
is that many clinical trials had been done only in names, many diagnoses were
made based on symptoms in men. And that, in the end, then,
has caused women, because heart attacks in women cannot be correctly identified that
some drugs had to be removed from the market, and that caused Elena IGE,
the National Institute of Heal, to create a mandate that forced women to
be included in clinical trials and forced not only to include them, but also
to evaluate gender differences as they were evaluating them. Why this is important,
then, because in the end our body communicates with our brain through nerves,
but also through molecules, which are the hormones that travel through the bloodstream,
informing the different organs how to function. And the cycle of women is different
from that of men. And this does not only affect the ovaries, but
affects the whole body. We have estrogen receptors in the heart, we have
estrogen receptors in the brain and during pregnancy, because the placenta is created and
starts releasing estrogens there. Pointed clear shovel. If we don' t evaluate
that, we' re leaving half the population behind, specifically ours, half
the women. And as a result of that mandate, other mandates have begun.
I mean, this is what we' ve been forced to do,
we' ve been forced to put them in experiments. I don' t
know if you remember in a part of the book in which I mention that
even I, at the beginning of my doctorate, didn' t include girls
measuring you from h that is a disorder, attention tefitil disorder that isn'
t even at the age of having hormonal cycles of menstruation, but we excluded
them because it was normal, it' s that studying the human being,
standard, which is the man you see And then, luckily, this now
because it' s reversing and now there' s every time I guess it
' s because there are more and more women in positions, not in research
that has always been, but in positions of leading research groups that decide which
phenomena are interesting to study. And I think you see it with other eyes.
Of course pregnancy is interesting to study, of course menopaus is interesting to
study. And we all know that not only from neck down, that at
the level of emotional regulation, of concentration capacity is often related to these hormonal
fructations, so we need to evaluate it with this gender perspective. It'
s just when I read that part of the book Casualities of Life, I
was seeing a controversy on other social networks, on Twitter here or like now
and on omail panels, and people who were very angry about complaining about men,
they felt that there didn' t have to be mandatory parity in talks,
conferences, etc. And I was just reading at the same time what
you were saying and of course until he wasn' t forced. I'
m sure how many people didn' t consider it necessary to examine or evaluate
from another perspective look at animal models. Normally in medicine, the roles are
used, the rats, because so calm they said we will study only males,
because of course, the females have the fruits of the menstrual cycle that
they call it and then they are too variable. The first problem represents reality,
because if they are variable and have an effect, we should study them.
Second problem that has been found later studies have shown that in men the
behavior is much more variable than in females, that is, in males,
it is much more variable than in females. Only the variation, instead of
going in this menstrual cycle, in rodents, is daytime, that is,
varies much more per day. That is, that the excuse they had to
exclude females from clinical trials is not even held clear now and that within a
while, I don' t think so, forgiveness doesn' t go on
and that within a while and that I mean that everything is evolving and that
what is now being considered and, for example, taking as a comparison in
the subject of talks and presentations, are masculine that use the moment that there
are only the best and the ones that have to be. It is not
obligatory to mind a woman because yes, well, within a time it will
be considered otherwise and it will be looked at with other eyes and it will
be understood that what does not become visible, does not become evident, is
not studied and does not exist. It' s as simple as that if
they name and exist exactly. We now have a collaboration with a very good
researcher in which she gave a lot of her name is Emily Jacobs, who
is in the United States. In fact, Magdalena, who was my PhD
student, is leaving in very little. They leave very little two years to
work with her and this girl did this researcher, They did a study about
neuroimage, because they showed how they had grown in the number of studies in
neuroimage over the last few years, and it was a brutal growth. They
saw as a percentage, for example, in a comparison of a percentage of
studies that have evaluated processes that affect men and women as the reinforcement, for
all, of all studies, only zero, as five percent. I was
focused on evaluating all the hormonal processes a woman goes through, whether it'
s giving birth control hormones, meno pausia, pregnancy, menstrual cycle, just
a zero with five percent. Is that ridiculous? It' s ridiculous,
and we see that now, but I' m telling you, I was
the first one to say ah not just guys, because if not, then
the variability between girls, because it' s a video and also, the
symptoms. I don' t know when you' re there with those glasses,
you don' t see, of course, no, no, it
' s not and it' s logical, but that' s there and
before we talked about your book and it' s good that I personally liked
it a lot for one because even to many demands and conversations that mothers,
in particular, we bring to collection very often as claims that have still been,
because that issues of visibility of women, of visibility of motherhood, of
historical issues, of visibility also at the scientific level. And then I also
thought as I read about what it means to be a woman and a mother
by investigating that you also talk about it in the book and that it also
seems very interesting to me, as you also talk about what it has cost
you, what it costs to be a mother and to have a team in
charge to develop an investigation, the precariousness that exists that is also known,
so it seems to me that your book brings together a lot of pieces,
of a super interesting puzzle and that it is worth knowing the whole audience,
that is not heard and the precariousness in science is shameful. Be embarrassing,
and I think that when you live in your little parcell, you don'
t realize that much, but when you go out and collaborate with other international
groups and explain to them, that is, to get an idea, I
think that nothing happens because I say this, but we' ve had so
many problems to get a project refunded. What a license plate is called a
Congress that hasn' t given it away, that is, it' s
been like we gave it away, because you can' t. There'
s kind of a distrust that we' re going to do something in trouble,
because we have to file a bill. But besides, the bill has
to be silly. My goodness and we have been told look poor Spanish,
or we reveal it, but it is hard And that when you go talking
every time I already tell you that this, in the end, this research
is very international and we do not carry it out very much with the United
States, Canada, Europe, and there are times that I explain to you
things that are not believed in that, you cannot believe it. I mean,
here we are, and obviously, there are worse countries, and I
can' t complain because under all the circumstances, because I' m privileged
because I have a group, I have some wonderful people working with me,
I have support, but yes, it' s a very sad situation.
Then it was also impossible that he didn' t seculate that while writing.
Of course in the end, I' ve been doing a lot since I
realized it' s the second book I follow. But first I was purely
scientific of a thesis that I did not and I have realized that if I
want to write, write from the purest sincerity and emotion, because if it
is not mentras the blockages and I put myself in scientific way that is inaccessible
clearly honeycomb I will tell you that, from my humble point of view as
a reader, it works in the best way. It' s true that
there are parts that are yourself. What you say hear this part if you
want to know how the brain corpo works, how everything is connected, but
hear that and you specify it and then it depends on the interest of each
reader. But it is true that it is impossible not to connect not with
experience and more so, telling things as universal as those you narrate, because,
as we said at the beginning, every mother or practically anyone has gone
through something like this and we see it as we said, we have internalized
it that I do not know if this book will serve their anas. If
anyone has already told you to go to the Chief' s table and say
I want a raise that looks at everything I' m doing ten percent more.
Thank you. I see it, I talk. I see him as
a man, for I am a standard- bearer of the head. A
hard science doctor doesn' t say it anymore I don' t say it
anymore That' s fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, look,
I hope it was for something the truth, that is, I think
it' s good to at least see it in perspective, to get out
a little bit, like seeing it from above and saying this is happening to
me. This is why and just don' t let us drag, because
in the end you let yourself be dragged by the day to day by your
emotions. Then see it a little from above and say good. It'
s just this is why, and if I want to, I can'
t control it a little bit, why. And if I don' t
want to control it, I don' t have to control it. Of
course I don' t know if maybe the audience I, as I'
ve already read it to myself Spoilers friends, no less, yes, but
it' s true that the core of the matter is that, as we
said at the beginning, we know because we' ve all experienced manifes,
or I don' t want to generalize everything, but practically those changes that
we live in that we think we' re not going to come back in.
I thought I wasn' t going to read a book again in my
life, I wasn' t able to concentrate it loses in memory apart from
hair. But that' s another issue, because I ran out of hair.
But pregnancy and childbirth, that is, and having a child changes your
body in a brutal, brutal way. And besides, in the last few
years or decades, we thought, I mean, having a child was the
way it came, you have a child and now you can go back to
work and you' re still the same woman. You' re still the
same person. No one warns you of all the changes, not only physiological,
but psychological, hormonal, social changes that come over you, labor and
of course, the beating is brutal. And if you also think that happens
to you, of course, that too I think helps us a little to
see that it is something very universal, that is, that it is not
oysters I do not come to ro because society is not that it is very
difficult to reach everything with the level of demand that we put on all women,
it is not just you. So I also think it' s important
to see that it' s a universal process that affects us all. At
the moment I have not found any mom who has told me a little bit
of logistical adaptations, but pretty much the same almost everyone who I have asked
speaks of it as a very transformative event, of rediscovering itself as moms and
as women the people who have not heard us I want. I invite,
of course, everyone who listens to us, everyone, to take the book.
But maybe there are those who raise an eyebrow and say uff we are
already with the theories that it is that biologists, not that we are all
dominated by our body and there is no further. This you develop in the
book. But they' ve come to ask you directly. How many times
yes, that is to say, when I started writing the book, I
knew because I had already done some, I had already published some scientific article
and I know that people are going to take it to its end and that
one beech can use it to defend one thing or another and also to attack.
If you want to attack. Then already, when I wrote it,
I already had this in my head and knew that I could spend the moment
with the book. I have not been told, but because I believe that
in the book I make it clear and if not, I take advantage of
the interviews to make it clear that I have. I mean, I know
I' m studying the smallest onion captain in the brain, but I know
that in the brain, and less in humans, it' s not isolated.
I mean, we' re living a couple, in a family,
with a society, with laws. For me not everything is biology, that
is, biology is mass, but this mass is going to adapt, receive
information and send information to the outside. All we do, that is,
cerebral plasticity, is that, cerebral plasticity, is the ability to adapt to
the brain and both internal and external pressures. So, I have that very
clear. I don' t think it' s a person and anyone who
knows me is not a person who believes that a mental pathology is unique to
a neurotransmitter. I don' t think that life history, everything that has
happened to you and the moment when you find the socio- economic touch,
the essential of the one you live, the pressures, the precariousness of work.
Well, I' ve got it very clear, very clear, and
I' m dedicated to neuroscience because it' s my little parcell, and
I think it' s important to study it, but I don' t
think it' s the cause of everything. In fact, it bothers me
a little when I read a scientific study says, because I think that science
is often interpreted as a dogma and it is like the new religion for me
that I do science, because a scientific study says little to me unless they
replicate it with another sample that sees very good statistical values, but today,
you can say a scientific study says and says to me what is worth is
accumulated science. That which is replicated is that you do it wherever you do
it in the United States, in Europe it always comes the same, I
do it or Emil Jacobs does it in the United States. For me that
' s what I am and I know that just because I' m science,
I don' t have to mean that I have to be constantly tested
and I put it to the test. I' m not in love with
this is what happens and I' m going to keep it, because that
' s what happens. I want to know what' s going on and
I' m going to test it using the scientific method, and there are
times that it gives me the reason and there are times that it doesn'
t give it to me later, because yes, maybe it wasn' t
your question directly, but I already used not to put yes, yes,
I think it' s great. Besides that. In fact, that works
well for us to confirm, because we need to know how to read about
science as well. And when we read in the media or report the media
itself, how much weight we give to such news, such a study,
because studies and news about every day, every day and of course, you
use the same study can be used to defend a cause and to defend the
opposite is very yes. Okay. There' s a part, when I
talk about the brain, that in the end we think we' re rational
beings with emotions, but we' re not emotional beings that we' re
looking for arguments to make it clear that we' re reacting, you as
a psychologist. Besides, you know that and you talk about it too and
that we have those biases. How our brain works, how it works,
and how the environment, in addition, influences a lot. And in motherhood
there is also, because, as soon as we begin to talk about how
the brain works in motherhood, that run room arises, not from how it
seems that we are united or behind biology or like it' s tyrannical biology
and we are women tied to our instincts, while, perhaps, we should
reveal ourselves in front of them to free ourselves as women. It always arises
with these themes, but it is true that You in the book, you
approach it in a super respectful way and, besides, as you well say,
always respecting that there is the influence of the environment to the influence of
the environment, that contexts matter, that the social matters greatly in human recres.
I mean, I' ve even been thinking about making some chapters about
instinct. No, because that' s true, it' s a theme
of how you interpret what instinct means. I leave it for the next one
there, but I have an opinion. I think he calls you can name
him whatever you want, because in the end, in science we often say
if I name him. I get it, but no, but call it
instinct, impulse, call it what you want, but someone has to sacrifice
their needs and desires at a certain time to prioritize them from someone who,
if he doesn' t, dies. It is the basis for placental mammals
to be in the layer of the earth. Then we can modulate instincts.
Of course we can' t modulate and the human being can perfectly mature them,
if you can go on a hunger strike if you don' t want
to. But the regions that control maternal behavior and please, don' t
get me wrong, control. I know we can reinforce or inhibit them,
because we have a huge crust in humans, but they are the same ones
that control hunger, thirst, sleep, are basic functions for the survival of
the individual and the species. Then you can say or regulate them and say
in the society I live in. I can' t put this into practice
because I don' t subsist or because it' s not the best thing
for even my baby, that what I want is the best for my baby,
but with that society that we have set up for me maybe, what
' s born to me is not the best. Or yes, or what
' s born of me is the best. And I' m gonna get
past the rest of it. Everything is very complicated there, but for me
there is something we can call instinct or whatever makes baby survival and well-
being a priority for us at some point. And this we see very normal
in humans. Perhaps we call attention when we see a rat that ignores or
attacks the young, but that at the time of being a mother, it
seems to him the most repetitive and most important thing to safeguard the world and
that you to that rat that has not gone through a pregnancy, you inject
hormones simulating a pregnancy and, suddenly, its behavior changes and passes and happens
to behave maternally. So there' s a biological part. It' s
clear to me. Clearly, it' s not the only one, let
alone humans. In fact, you also mention that it seems to me a
very important point, because I couldn' t help but remember active mothers,
those women who do the role of mother or even will be fathers, and
that seems fundamental to me. Yeah, yeah, totally me. At the
end of the book I dedicate the book to my daughter, but also to
my partner, because I know that many times and especially when you are writing
in the book, for he has been almost the primary caregiver, many for
a long time, because I was super involved writing the book. Then I
don' t believe at all that parents don' t have to get involved,
because they don' t have biology. Not at all. Please,
that I don' t use it clearly and with what you comment that you
are studying it, truth that as for non- biological mothers, but a
little bit we give for whoever we are and that I don' t know
what to leave with that question of the instinct that is sometimes used against them,
not as yes, yes, yes, yes, well, thank you,
Monica, because so you allow me to also clarify it, just as
I say that the sisters of gestation make that embe I am already talking about
animal models make the breeding the most relevant for the mother and that the mother
immediately feels attracted by her and wants to safeguard and protect and care for her.
We also know from animal models that exposure little by little to the offspring
is able to facilitate and maintain maternal behavior in animals that have not gone through
a pregnancy alone that is a procium, is a more L- till then
how gestation. What it does is that reaction is fast, because the baby
needs to be taken care of already from minute one. Someone has to be
in love with the baby or at least if you don' t want to
call him in love or as a baby- centered person, and then she
takes care of the rest, they' re wonderful and they' re able
to get laid and of course, you need interaction. If not this interaction,
I mean, maybe, maybe those dads who say good this is from
the mother. If you don' t have the interaction, the baby can
' t exercise its power. It' s the contact, the day-
to- day interaction with the baby that' s going to try to forgive.
No, no, nothing. It' s just that they' re
coming at me. I remember things as you go talking because I was thinking,
for example, about how those mothers, for example, who reject their
children. Or, for example, is that before mother ferret. We have
heard many testimonies on many occasions because with the topic of motherhood there is a
civic motherhood that must also be demystified, because not all the mother, because
she is mothers, do good for her creatures and how clear there are times
that this argument the brain has changes that seek the survival of the creature and
its good and its protection. And just when it doesn' t happen like
that, what happened to his brain. Yeah, I think the first thing
is that always the hundred that we' re talking about an average, not
that there are extremes on one side of the other. These extremes can come
from multiple factors, not only biological, as I say, but also social,
previous experiences, not experiences in raising other studies. We know that the
early years are very vital to optimize that bonding circuit and that it will also
be the same one that will be activated when you are mom this social circuit,
to put it in a way. What happens, for example, in
people who end up with postpartum depression, as it is also a multifactorial aspect.
We can' t just consider the brain. The experience on the part
is important, the previous history, is important, hormonal sensitivity. We know
that women who have more sensitivity, menstrual cycles, or pre- monthly depression
syndrome are at greater risk after having postpartum depression. I mean, it'
s a multifactor construct. And then I want to desidealize a little that when
I say falls in love with the baby, you can call it love,
but that you have is a motivation, a desire, a need to be
in touch that you sometimes don' t enjoy. That is, when we
talk about this mesolimbic circuit of energetic param, we can visualize it also as
the one that activates when you are addicted to something that sometimes you don'
t even enjoy when it arrives, but you have that need to be in
contact that sometimes translates into pleasure and sometimes not then. Many times, many
moms are waiting to fall in love, not then. Since I want to
get the baby, I already feel love and no. No. I think
it is a simplification that we scientists sometimes do, because to explain very complicated
things, such as dopamine release, which motivates action towards a particular object.
In this circuit, for me it translates more into a desire, a motivation
than a pleasure for itself. It' s just so complicated. I mean,
it seems like very simple, but of course, in the end there
are so many experiences and something that you commented, for example, about childbirth,
not the experience of childbirth, how the type of childbirth that you have
had influences and how that birth has been, how it will influence that development,
also that brain transformation that we are going to suffer mothers. Yeah,
I also think it helps a lot to see that we' re talking about
brains. But no one doubts that during a pregnancy, a grizzly and a
postpartum, your body becomes whole. That' s right, so there'
s a lot of non- data and whole manuals of exact exttritia psychology,
but for example, you pump almost fifty more percent of blood. It'
s a beastly transformation that changes your skin color. I had no idea about
this, when it happened to him, and look at the motherhood, but
suddenly I grew my foot possible to us. I mean, there' s
a lot of changes in the whole body, because in the end there'
s a new organ that secretes some new molecules, because the whole body,
including the brain, is going to have to function in a different homeostatic state,
that is, it' s going to have to function in different parameters,
because if not another one human being, can' t have someone genetically
different from him inside the body. I' d attack him, because the
immune system would say this is bad. Then the whole body has to adapt,
the whole body and the brain too. And these adaptations, because they
are different, that is, the needs of the mother and the baby are
different when you are gestating, when you have to give birth and then during
the postpartum period. So, if we understand this, it is easier to
understand the separate importance or the separate contribution of each of these processes. They
are different at the immune level, at the hormonal level, at the environmental
level. A pregnancy has nothing to do with what happens at the time of
delivery, nor what happens in the postpartum period. So we have simply observed
that they are also different at the brain level, that when you discover it,
it seems obvious, not clear and taking this that you comment on development,
because maybe we don' t look too big or very abstract. But
let' s see if we can get to make that our audience. Understand
what this research is translated into or for practical purposes, which involves for the
average mother what it can mean in the way pregnant mothers are treated or treated,
for example, during their pregnancy, it can change some kind of process
or it can involve something substance For me, because I think it gives a
lot of validity to something that the whole mother knew then. It' s
funny that in the end, because all moms know that we feel different,
we talk about these symptoms, these weird sensations of not only at the cognitive
level, but also in tastes motivations, things that we like that we used
to like or the other way around, and that' s something that moms
knew that, besides, the classics of psychology also aiming go and we basically,
what we have done has been to put a brain image, with some
changes, with a statistic and as we are now in the realm of neuroscience,
because to show people that they need that to believe that this is not
only a quantifiable phenomenon, but that it is me that I have studied with
many pathologies, it is the most marked brain change that I have seen in
my entire career as neuroscientific. I mean, I' ve studied children with
what I was saying, children with DHT, people with schizophrenia and cosis.
I' ve never seen changes as marked as those I' ve seen in
women' s brains when they go through maternity. Never? Never? Never,
I mean, only with the brain image can you know if a person
has gone through a pregnancy, no, and this not even with the greval
image can you tell if a person has a skit or not. With a
hundred percent true you stay about seventy- five, because we, with our
studies, with only the brain image could know the brain image of bed,
we could know if that brain belonged to a person who had been through pregnancy
or not. And in fact, now we' re seeing that it'
s not necessary to have a lot of evidence. With not only Rome evaluated
over time, you can already see these changes. You hardly need statistics.
It' s an obvious thing. It means the magnitude is very, very,
very large and I think that helps moms also get women to take us
seriously. Yes, and besides, I don' t want you to forget
about the term or you also recover this term of matres sciences that is being
heard more and more, where you compare the development that is already well known,
of adolescence. Everyone already talk about the changes during adolescence and we have
and we have them also super assumed. As is normal. They are changing,
they are developing such and yet, matter no longer comes after it gives
light and come put them to the one before. Come fast anyway. You
can' t flag, even though you now have three times the job,
because you have to take care of a human being. Yes, yes,
it was important to me and, besides, the study. This came out
almost also because of a kind of rebound with the press, because the first
study we published was interpreted as having women brain atrophy with pregnancy. We always
said good to have volume reductions in biology are not always worse. During adolescence,
the volume of gray substance decreases and these decreases favor the maturation of certain
cognitive functions. But let' s not have tried it and the next thing
we did was say it, because let' s prove it. Let'
s see if it' s true, and we threatened a group of women
before and after the first pregnancy and a group of teenagers, the girls before
and after the puberta, and we could also prove with a scientific article that
the anatomical changes were identical at the magnetic character level, after it happens at
the cellular level, because we still don' t know, because we can
' t see it in humans. But at the neo- anatomical level,
the two processes show identical, identical changes And so with everything we knew again
from the classics of Dana' s contribution, Rafael abráril Atán, who already
do this parallelism with motherhood and adolescence, or Alexandra sax who is the psychiatrist
this made him famous with the talk Ted. Well, we brought this term
back. But now, from the biological perspective of brain changes, repopularize it
clearly, give it a little bit of shine, give it the real neuro
- gaphites. Everyone wants to see things with neuro gadgets is that it is
now very fashionable n yes too much. I love them and I do that,
but I think it' s all neuros now, that' s nothing,
I' m all euro going to become euro podcast. Yeah, I
' ve even seen neuroports, neuromarketing, it' s neuro. Of course,
everything, everything, everything, everything goes, everything, you can apply
neuro. Whatever. Yeah,' cause, yeah, it doesn' t
like it, it' s true, and besides, it looks as modern
as it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you
' re fucking dangerous, uh, me, especially because then you don'
t find neuro. I mean, it' s clear, when everything'
s already neuro, it' s already gone. I mean, what'
s neuro, not sure, but now it' s true that they'
re starting to be hard to tell. It doesn' t apply everything anymore
and it' s true that maybe I don' t know how it'
s used. I don' t know what degree there is of the same
that you scientists have to be super rigorous when it comes to applying, that
is, placing the sources the standard you have to use, I don'
t know what to quote when it comes to using terminology. There isn'
t that same rigor and sometimes it loses a little bit, but I don
' t think it' ll get away with scientists and I' ve got
more of the mark Yes. Yeah. I think it clearly comes from marketing.
Neuro sells and gets it into ebry well. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
In any case, in your book it goes well, you touch it
or what I do. In this case I felt, I don' t
say. In fact, I feel a lot more comfortable talking about neurohard than
what neuro represents more because I did psychology, but then I don' t
almost exercise, no, I' m more pure and hard neuro. Now,
in any case, the neuro is perfectly included. And before it'
s over, which one is not. I want to leave the final part
dedicated to postpartum depression, which I think you talk about how you can detect
those markers or how you can detect the best and not, because sometimes it
is difficult to know to what extent a woman goes through a state of sadness
or melancholy or tiredness, a sum of factors and when there is a postpartum
depression, how to detect it. And more considering that when you give birth
the mother already disappears and the attention to mothers is null yes, they did
not think to insert this is a small section. Even I don' t
think it' s a chapter, but it' s very, very,
very brief. Yeah, and the idea of finally putting it in is because
I have matron friends who were telling me that they were trying to incorporate huge
depression screenings. Not at all does he diagnose the book much less, but
there are screenings, there are very easy tests that want to be incorporated into
the clinic, but that in the end the care prisons cause some, in
some autonomous communities, to be incorporated and in others not. And jo cost
me no effort. It was as easy for me as saying good. I
leave you here the links are translated and in Spanish the questionnaires, not by
me, but by people who have validated them simply if you and besides,
you can do it in your house calmly without feeling guilty. If you see
you score higher than the cut- off point, consult, consult and have
them help you. I also think that romanticizing this idea of motherhood and seeing
what' s good and bad and putting yourself a little in the center helps
you if you need to ask for help, you can ask for it.
And that was very easy for me to do, and I think it can
help moms who find themselves in that state and doubt whether what happens to them
is normal, whether they have to ask for help or not. And again,
he' s not diagnosing at all. They are links that you like
the typical questionnaires that everyone spends research and, moreover, they want to be
incorporated in the clinic. But for logistical reasons it doesn' t give time,
so you go. That' s where we collect the data They'
re anonymous. It automatically calculates the score and you say. Hey, I
' m at the cutoff point. If I continue like this, it doesn
' t cost me anything to go to the family doctor and tell him listen
look I happen this that you consider evaluating me to see, hopefully, hopefully,
I cry out to hope. I wish, I wish. This would
serve and, above all, there would be more attention. Once you give
birth to the mother, who stays very alone, who is overwhelmed with the
weight of the social chicken and in social support, because already the mother,
but it is perfect if you are already home and in theory and the child
still clear and and yesiologically, you are recovering. But all that is supposed
to be, because his thing would be that your book reached many consultations,
many midwives, many gins, not that many professionally have come to the truth
and that makes me very happy because I think they are hups, not men.
They can many nurses, pediatricians, people who are in contact at the
end as much as in my baby as with that mother they come to consult
who calls her Mommy, who no longer ceases to have her own name and
becomes the mother of and who arrives on many occasions how she arrives at those
consultations. But, this gives a lot of truth and I hope that it
will reach many healthcare professionals who have the ability to make decisions and to pay
more attention or demand resources as well. I don' t know, I
know it depends on many factors, but in any case it is rigorous information
with all the water to the scientist of the world and beyond, what we
will live in this case not and, moreover, super accessible and very human
and with which it is very easy to connect its healthy And I thank you
a lot for the effort, because precisely for that to make it arrive and
make it understandable and accessible to everyone, since questions that can stay away in
the academy, know only for the elite and that it is accessible to everyone.
And in a way also, because they are very close, very simple
and that you are all able and I hope that all read it also you
who really will be very interested also that you will be able to go very
safely, so thank you, because it really makes me very happy to hear
what you say. I' m really telling you from the heart that it
' s worth all the effort, just to see that you get it.
So, we will leave all the notes about the book in the program as
always in the description, and nothing is used. We' ll keep reading
about you and seeing your work and the work of your team, because you
' re there, I know you' re on more research and I imagine
we' ll have the news for you. So nothing short, yes,
but good, compa shortly, soon, very short, well. Some of
them came out in brief, yeah, well, yeah, one went out
on Wednesday. Yeah, I saw that, I mean, but yeah,
and is that hanan? That way they' re over there? Are they?
That' s why they have to be checked, but I think they
' ll be good soon, because prime tien can be a clear one.
That' s what I was going to tell you, that I say I
don' t know if we have the same concept of not clear, myself
on a temporary scale of brief science I don' t know in good anticipation
when I have to take that no. It is also necessary to be patient
that this is the case and that, above all, that what the process
is and that your work, because it is the best possible, that is,
that you have, that you have all the help, that it is
not that bureaucratic torture of actions that we know it is and that it is
really absurd that that has to be so. No one can understand it,
you don' t understand it either who does it like that. Why can
it justify you not, not because we' re going to piss you off
so better, not anything, just wish you a lot of luck and that
nora good. Mostly, thank you, Monica. Friends, we' re
leaving We' ll be back in a new episode of good morning. I
hope you enjoyed this episode very much and that you get this book running is
good in your neighborhood bookstore and we will come back very soon with a new
episode. Good- bye, Susana. Bye.