What actually happens in your brain during pregnancy and early parenthood
Two live workshops this September
Pregnancy restructures the brain at a scale researchers compare to adolescence. Becoming a parent keeps changing the brain well past birth (in fact from pregnancy through the first year postpartum the brain is its most plastic!), building out a different, more elaborate set of systems primed for nurturing your baby especially once you’re actually caring for that tiny person in front of you. These two workshops go into what’s happening at each stage, and what it might mean for how you experience it.
Registration Options
How Pregnancy Rewires the Brain — Tuesday, September 22, 7-8:30pm Eastern Time — $30
The Parental Brain Transformation — Tuesday, September 29, 7-8:30pm Eastern Time — $30
Both workshops — $50, save $10
How Pregnancy Rewires the Brain
Tuesday, September 22, 7-8:30pm Eastern Time – $30
If you’ve felt foggy, or forgetful, or like a stranger in your own head at some point in pregnancy, you’re not falling apart. Researchers have found real, measurable structural change during pregnancy in the brain, on a scale comparable to adolescence. And it concentrates in the regions built for reading other people, the social and empathy networks specifically, which makes sense! You’re about to spend years understanding someone who communicates almost entirely without words.
We’ll get into where that research actually comes from, what “brain plasticity” means beyond the pop-science version of the phrase, and a concept called maternal-fetal attachment, the emotional connection that develops during pregnancy.
The Parental Brain Transformation
Tuesday, September 29, 7-8:30pm Eastern Time – $30
You can be completely in love with your baby and also terrified something will happen to them in the same five minutes. Those are two different systems in the parental brain, and both are doing exactly their job. One runs on reward and bonding, dopamine and oxytocin. The other activates around threat, and research has shown it fires more strongly in parents than people without children.
We’ll get into how these systems interact, why your own nervous system regulation is part of the actual mechanism of caregiving rather than a break from it, and what the research on biobehavioral synchrony tells us about how a parent’s more mature nervous system co-regulates an infant’s immature one, moment to moment. This workshop includes guided reflection and practical exercises alongside the science and time for questions and answers.
Register for both workshops and save $10
Pregnancy is a renovation of the brain, the structural change that happens in preparation for life with a newborn. Postpartum is what happens once you’re actually living in that renovated brain space, finding out what the wiring is for in real time, with a real baby in front of you. It’s also during this postpartum period that non-gestational parent brains undergo their transformation!
If you want the fuller arc, from what’s happening during pregnancy to what happens once baby is here, this bundle covers both sessions.
Who these are for
People who are pregnant, people considering it, new or expecting parents, and anyone curious about why pregnancy or parenthood changed them so profoundly. Also birth workers, doulas, childbirth educators, lactation professionals, coaches, and therapists supporting parents through this. I come to this work through body literacy, reproductive health, and disability and neurodivergence, which shapes how I teach it, though these workshops aren’t only for disabled or neurodivergent people. If that’s your lens too, you’ll find it here.
Logistics
- Both workshops run live over Zoom. A link goes out after you register.
- Can’t make it live? Workshops will be recorded and shared with participants afterward.
- Only want one? Both workshops are available separately for $30 each, or together for $50.
- Please share any access needs when registering for your workshop(s).