Publisher Description
Your guide to the emotions of pregnancy and early motherhood, from two of America’s top reproductive psychiatrists.
When you are pregnant, you get plenty of advice about your growing body and developing baby. Yet so much about motherhood happens in your head. What every pregnant woman really wants to know: is this normal? Is it normal for my sex drive to disappear or to go into overdrive? Is it normal to have nesting urges or an overloaded “mommy brain”? Is it normal for my parents to be acting out? Is it normal not to feel love at first sight for my baby? Is it normal to argue with my partner? For Dr. Sacks and Dr. Birndorf, the answer is yes.
In What No One Tells You, two of America’s top reproductive psychiatrists provide a road map for mothers-to-be, detailing the complicated emotions that bubble up and explaining the psychological and hormonal backstory as to why. With 30 years of combined experience counseling mothers, they show why it’s natural for “matrescence”—the birth of a mother—to be as stressful and transformative a period as adolescence. Here, finally, is the first ever practical guide to help new mothers feel less guilt and more self-esteem, less isolation and more kinship, less resentment and more intimacy, less exhaustion and more pleasure, and learn other tips to navigate the ups and downs of this exciting, demanding time.
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About the Authors
Alexandra Sacks, MD, is a women’s mental health psychiatrist affiliated with the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research and the Columbia Women’s Program. A regular contributor to the New York Times, her article “The Birth of a Mother” was the #1 most read piece of 2017 for the paper’s Well Family section, and inspired “The Goddess Myth,” a Time cover story. Her work to popularize the term “matrescence” has been covered by NPR, New York Magazine, Allure, and Elle; her matrescence TED talk will be published this year through the TED Residency. She is the author, with Catherine Birndorf, of What No One Tells You.
Catherine Birndorf, MD, is founding director of the Payne Whitney
Women’s Program at the New York–Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell
Medical Center in New York City, where she continues to work as a senior
consultant. She is also a clinical associate professor of psychiatry
and obstetrics and gynecology. Dr. Birndorf is a regular mental health
columnist for Self magazine and has appeared on numerous television programs, including the Today Show, Good Morning America, and the Early Show.
About Cynthia Farrell
Cynthia Farrell, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a singer and voice actor best known for her roll as Catalina in the video games Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. She has also performed off Broadway and has released a number of records.