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The Female Brain
New mothers lose an average of seven hundred hours of sleep in the first year postpartum.
...In one study, mother rats were given the opportunity to press a bar and get a squirt of cocaine or press a bar and get a rat pup to suck their nipples...Those oxytocin squirts in the brain outscored a snort of cocaine every time.
Both are from the new and noteworthy The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine. Here is a very brief (and somewhat skewed in the direction of politically correct) summary. Here is more. Here is a Deborah Tannen review.
There are way way way too many books on gender differences. Most of them just string together the usual well-known templates, but I read every page of this one with interest. The best parts focus on the role of hormones.
Not everyone will appreciate the punchy style -- "There's a new reality brewing in Sylvia's brain, and it's a take-no-prisoners view" -- but everyone who wants to marry or have kids should read this book.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 24, 2006 at 04:56 AM in Science | Permalink
Comments
Caution. It seems that Brizendine is quite careless about references and data:
Check out:
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2006/08/female_frequency_err.html
Posted by: leo at Aug 24, 2006 8:32:59 AM
Another scholarly critique of the science behind the book:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/003419.html
Posted by: Mae at Aug 24, 2006 9:22:48 AM
Seven hundred hours? I lost a lot more than that with each of the kids and my wife lost at least one thousand hours of sleep in each one's first year.
We was robbed.
Posted by: Brian Watkins at Aug 24, 2006 4:22:09 PM
The fact that mothers have a biological need to care for their babies is really not new. Given the babies require feeding every four hours, anything less and humans would have gone extinct long ago. Although never acknowleged it is underlying premise of the Right to Life movement. They know that once a baby is born almost all mothers will care for it whether or not she wants the child (even a rape victom). From an economist point of view, it introduces an kink in the utility her function.
Posted by: joan at Aug 24, 2006 4:57:38 PM
Just from very recent experience (i.e., this morning), some kids require being fed more often than every 4 hours.
I got really big kids out of it, but it can wear a woman down. The addictive quality of baby-sugar is a pretty good evolutionary ploy.
Posted by: meep at Aug 24, 2006 5:02:32 PM
Actually, individual mileage may vary in terms of bonding.
Oxytocin works by exposure to bond the infant and mother, mother and father, and the father and the infant: http://www.babyreference.com/BondingMatters.htm.
However, this biological process depends on continued physical proximity and contact, and so is not inevitable. Nursing, vaginal delivery and ongoing physical contact increase the likelihood of successful bonding. In their absence, this particular bio-chemical bonding may not happen, even if the parents do bond with a child later.
Even something as evolutionarily important and basic as nursing requires both the mother and infant to learn a skill. It isn't entirely innate.
Which is why I take anything claiming hormones as the be-all and end-all explanation with a grain of salt.
Georgiana
Posted by: Georgiana at Aug 24, 2006 6:24:39 PM
Whereas if the rat had a coke addiction prior to giving birth...
Posted by: Currence at Aug 24, 2006 8:58:01 PM
All drugs and neurotransmitters basically are hormones.
Posted by: aaron at Aug 26, 2006 12:35:08 AM
/hormone substitutes and manipulators.
Posted by: aaron at Aug 26, 2006 12:37:14 AM
I wish I could get my husband to understand that I'm operating minus 700 hours of sleep on an altered hormonal profile. Maybe then he'd let me take a nap instead of saying "You go take a nap, honey" and then sending the kids upstairs to wake me and ask me where all the pancake ingredients are. Maybe I should get him to read this book.
Posted by: Wacky Hermit at Aug 27, 2006 11:54:44 AM
Saying that women behave like women due to hormones is not shocking. Men behave like men due to hormones. Give a big guy a good dose of pre-menstrual hormones and you'd find him bawling in the bathroom because someone slighted his favorite economist or book! Give it to him every four weeks for a year and he'll be ready to blow his brains out rather than go through it a 13th time. Men have it so easy.
Posted by: A female brain at Aug 29, 2006 9:09:45 PM
I am actually shocked that a new mother loses that much sleep during the first year of postpartum. I thought that it would be less than that. I do believe that having a newborn would be very difficult so I can only imagine how much sleep would be lost. Women do have tendencies to take care of other people and to make others happy so it doesn't surprise me that they would prefer the oxytocin squirts in the brain vs. the shots of cocaine.
Posted by: Christine at Aug 29, 2006 9:37:54 PM
It is quite surprisong that new mothers lose 700 hours of sleep but if you think about it, losing 2 hours of sleep a night for 1 year would be just that. I could imagine it would be very intimadating for a woman about to give birth but it is a part of life. I wonder if the rat had a cocaine addiction before giving birth. I guess a snort of cocaine would be a little much for a 3 ox. rat but I would have guessed the rat would be taken the snort given its terrible life style.
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