There was an interesting article in the Health section of this morning's
paper.  It stated that research was showing that becoming a mother caused
permanent changes in a woman's brain.  The study was done on rats (more
later) and showed that mother rats became more adept at finding food and
better at remembering things like where they left their pups.  They then
talked about how human mothers are able to pick out their own child's crying
from several crying babies.  It stated that men do not experience such a
change.



What jumped out at me was the fact that they compared virgin rats with
LACTATING rats.  Then the results were extrapolated to be applicable to all
mothers.  One has to wonder to what extent it was the lactating as opposed
to simply having given birth.  Did rats whose pups were stillborn or removed
from mother show the same changes and to the same extent?  I would like to
see such a study done with both lactating and non-lactating mother rats.   I
suspect, however that (insert sarcastic tone of voice here) depriving the
pups of their mother's milk or depriving the mother of the full cycle of
reproduction might be considered cruelty to animals.



Winnie


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