Free Republic

Ms. Conaboy is a journalist specializing in health and the author of the forthcoming book “Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood,” from which this essay has been adapted.Around the time that Mimi Niles became a mother, an upstairs neighbor in her New York City apartment building had twins. When the two women ran into each other in the hallway or on the sidewalk, Ms. Niles would ask the neighbor how she was faring. “Fabulous,” Ms. Niles remembered her saying. “I’m so happy.” Ms. Niles was dumbfounded. She was not feeling fabulous in new motherhood. She was...

TORONTO – For women, smelling a newborn baby feels as good as drugs are to addicts or cheeseburgers to those just breaking a fast, new Montreal research suggests. A University of Montreal scientist says a newborn baby’s odour lights up the reward centres in our brain in a way other scents can’t. And for women – specifically moms – the experience, a rush of dopamine to the brain, is heightened. The reaction is so strong, it exists even if the baby isn’t in front of you. It’s chemistry between mom and baby. “What we’ve shown for the first time is...

A Burmese woman is breastfeeding two tiger cubs at a zoo in Rangoon after they were removed from their aggressive mother. Hla Htay, 40, who has three children, the youngest seven months old, offered her services after the Bengal tiger cubs' mother, Noah Noah, killed the third member of her litter. The two others, a male and a female, were taken from her and now receive bottle feeds as well as Hla Htay's milk four times a day. "I felt sorry for them so I decided to feed them before their teeth grow," she told the Myanmar Times, a privately-owned...

News flash: Women are leaving the workplace in droves to become full-time mothers. Two years ago Karen Hughes resigned as counselor to President Bush to go back to Texas and spend time with her family. In response, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd ridiculed Karen Hughes’ exercise of free choice: “Women will never get anywhere in this boys’ administration, or this boys’ town, or this boys’ world, if they’re going to sacrifice prime West Wing real estate every time their husbands and kids kvetch.” Not to ruin your day, Ms. Dowd, but Karen Hughes is not an aberration. According to...