The science is telling us this is a time of major turmoil really for the brain.

We're going through these huge changes.

And that is adaptive and productive.

And it is what is helping us to be the parents we need to be.

But it's also really hard.

Thank you. it's also really hard. You're listening to Doing It Right with me, Pandora Sykes, a podcast where I talk to

experts about the myths, anxieties and trends of modern life.

There's no such thing as the right life, but what might we be getting wrong?

In this series, series three, I'll be exploring sleep, the science of emotions and fast fashion,

and I'll be asking my guests questions like is baby brain a real thing is everything

we've been told about skincare wrong and why aren't we talking more about dementia? This is a podcast

that asks what can we do to live life better? Not just for ourselves but for everyone.

Parents, did you find yourself scrambling for words, losing your keys and forgetting basically everything when you had a baby?

Non-parents, perhaps you witnessed it in your best friend, your sibling, your colleague. The jokes about how women are lobotomised by motherhood are damaging and misogynistic.

The term baby brain has been used to keep women in their place and the domestic space for decades.

But how was I to reconcile that knowledge with a brain that felt like it had turned to cheese?

Which is why I was so excited to speak to science writer Chelsea Connerboy.

With her new book, Mother Brain, and a searing recent New York Times op-ed,

Chelsea uses science to myth-bust so many ideas we have around biology, birth and the brain. We discuss why the idea

of maternal instinct is unhelpful to new mothers and fathers, why The Golden Hour is not the only

chance you have to bond with your baby, why oxytocin, aka the love hormone, is not just released

by birth and breastfeeding, and, this is a big one,

...