Hacker News Reader

Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotally I can say it has a large effect on the male brain too. The lack of sleep and time changes you. You get ruthless against time stealers and start seeing 6 hours as a nice long sleep.

Full disclosure : I've had about 8hr sleep in 3 days,two sick kids...

View on HN

People underestimate the effect of extreme sleep deprivation. For the first three months of my daughter's life, we didn't sleep for more than two hours at a time. The effect was profound - I was having auditory hallucinations, was paranoid, etc. It was only after she started sleeping through the night that I understood it was due to the lack of sleep.

I experienced this too with my daughter. She had colic so we got very little sleep for 3 months straight. I thought I was going crazy due to hallucinations and paranoia. All that went away when I was able to get at least 6 hours straight sleep per night.

FTA: And they compared these women's brains with those of 19 first-time fathers, 17 men without children and 20 women who had never given birth.

So the findings seem to be unique to mothers.

Your lifestyle might change because you have a baby, but (within the scope of this research) pregnancy does not have an effect on the male brain.

please recalibrate your irony detector. Thank you.

Detected; I reject that it's relevant to the discussion, and I'm disappointed it's the top comment. Lifestyle changes aren't relevant to the research presented in the study. What would be relevant is contrary evidence of hormonal changes in males after their spouses undergo pregnancy, or structural alterations in the brain. Of course each parent is impacted by literally taking care of an infant, but what does that have to do with one gender experiencing grey matter reductions?

You know what's super-interesting? Although it's deeply under-researched and still subject to a lot of argument, there's mounting evidence that men going through a partner's pregnancy experience significant hormonal changes as well. Papers like [1] and [2] are really preliminary (small sample sizes, etc) and don't fully agree, but both show these hormonal changes in men going through pregnancy with a partner. How much is simply the stress of a life change? How much is couvade, or "sympathetic pregnancy"? How much is evolutionarily adaptive? No one knows yet, but it's an interesting piece to the puzzle: apparently the lower testosterone, higher cortisol, and changes in prolactin and estradiol that expectant fathers experience don't have the same neuroanatomical effects as the changes women experience in pregnancy.

Hormones are really interesting!

[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.22670/abstra... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11393496

That is irrelevant as it is consequence of life style change. Many mothers do not change lifestyle.

This however makes me think how much of the woman change is due to the life style change which is mandatory in given situation for majority of mothers and how much is programmed.

> Many mothers do not change lifestyle.

I'm not sure what you mean. Babies necessitate a change of lifestyle if only because they demand to be fed in the middle of the night.

There are cultures where the grandparents or other relatives mostly take care of the children while the mother works (some parts of China), and there are people who pay for nannies to take care of the children at night.

But if they are in part this study it doesn't matter.

Well sure, but there is certainly a massive change in lifestyle for 99% of mothers even if they continue working.

Yep, 5 month old here, teething. Short term memory is impacted.

Still, impressive typing skills for your age.

You made my day :D

Twin parent here...2 years and 2 months into it, and I would really like to know the limit of this "at least 2 years", because that original brain hasn't shown itself one bit, and I'd sure like to have it back.

Former coworker of mine figured poor memory formation during those early months is the only reason anyone has more than one kid.

I have a pretty relaxed attitude towards sick kids: if they're in real distress they'll yell and wake me up.

My wife thinks I'm a monster.

Women would of course also suffer from the lack of sleep, so I don't understand your point.

I'm in the same boat.

But that just sounds like being grouchy through lack of sleep, and perhaps not actual structural changes to your brain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com