We also want to thank Tali Sharot & Laura Remis for their work as editors, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback!
Authors: @dmartindeblas @cballesteros_s @MagdaMartinezGa @susanna_carmona @paterninadie

🙏🙏 We sincerely thank all the participants in this study, especially the mothers, for sharing such a special moment with us.

🤰Childbirth is a transformative event that can profoundly shape a woman's life. These results highlight the importance of including childbirth and maternal experiences as key variables in pregnancy neuroscience research. 📷Jennifer Mason

More research is needed to better understand the relationship between these variables and the underlying molecular mechanisms.📝📈👩🏻‍🔬

🚨 We found that adverse childbirth experience is associated with pregnancy-to-postpartum increases in hippocampal volume. We also found that increases in depressive symptoms were positively correlated with greater right amygdala volume🚨

🔍🧠 We longitudinally analyzed the brains of 88 first-time mothers during the peripartum (late pregnancy to early postpartum). We tested if changes in hippocampal and amygdala volume—key for memory and emotional processing—were related to birth experience & perinatal depression.