THE GOOD ENOUGH MOTHER PODCAST

Nurturing the Next Generation:

A Revolution in Infant Mental Health

June 19, 2023

The Nurture Revolution, Infant Brain Development, Children’s Mental Health, Parents’ Mental Health, Busting Baby Myths, Nurtured Empathy, Revolutionising Motherhood, Revolutionising Infant Care, Building Strong Foundations, Empowered Parenting Practices, Empowered Mothering

with Neuroscientist, Doula, Educator and Author Dr Greer Kirshenbaum

In this episode, I speak with Dr Greer Kirshenbaum - a neuroscientist, doula, educator, and author of her newly released book: "The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby's Brain and Transform Their Mental Health through the Art of Nurtured Parenting.”

Greer shares with us revolutionary science about the power of nurturing in infancy - which is defined as the first 3 years of life. Throughout Greer’s book and this episode, Greer dispels common myths surrounding the care and nurture of babies: including social narratives about self-soothing, sleep training, temperamental differences between our babies, and the level of control we really have over how our children behave, feel, and react. We dive into a discussion of epigenetics and how we are influenced by ancestral experiences. I share my favourite parts of Greer’s work that have revolutionised my own understanding of childhood - and motherhood.

In this episode, you’ll learn about the links between mental health, infancy, our stress system, and nurture as a practice. We also discuss toxic cultures of ‘low nurture’ and talk about Greer’s concept of ‘nurtured empathy’ for both our babies and ourselves.

  • “We know more about babies than ever now. The past 30 years have been - the amount of information that's been collected is staggering - genetic revolution. We've figured out the entire human genome and all the mechanisms that go along with it. There's been a neuroscience revolution in the past 30 years - over my 20 plus year career - and it's absolutely unbelievable the amount of information has been discovered. So we're at a really interesting point right now, where we're the first generation of parents really, who can mobilise themselves around this information. And when we know better, we do better.”

    — Dr Greer Kirshenbaum in conversation with Sophie Brock, Ep #97 The Good Enough Mother

  • “Low-nurture cultures lack support or acknowledgement of the rights and needs of parents and babies.”

    — The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby's Brain and Transform Their Mental Health Through the Art of Nurtured Parenting by Dr Greer Kirshenbaum

  • “There's three periods that we know of right now, that are the most important for our emotional development. The first is 0-3 - our babies. The second time is adolescence. And then the third time is when we become parents… I say babies are in this very special season of life, 0-3, and so are parents… And essentially, what happens is, those brain areas that I already mentioned… the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex, become incredibly plastic, and reshaped again, when we become parents. So it's almost like our inner infant, our inner baby has a chance to heal in those times, because we have so much access to rewiring those areas. And another really important brain area that becomes really plastic, when we become parents is the insula, which is involved in empathy.”

    — Dr Greer Kirshenbaum in conversation with Sophie Brock, Ep #97 The Good Enough Mother

  • “The brain areas that dramatically change in parenthood overlap with the emotional brain areas that develop in infancy.”

    — The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby's Brain and Transform Their Mental Health Through the Art of Nurtured Parenting by Dr Greer Kirshenbaum

  • “Nearly everything for babies - and us as people - there's a huge spectrum of almost every characteristic, and stress is a huge one. So some babies are born with temperaments that are very low reactive to stress. So new things, new sensations, new people - they’re okay with it, they don't really have a big reaction, right? Some babies are in the middle, and then other babies on the other side of the spectrum where they're extremely sensitive to new things, new people, temperature changes, all kinds of things. And so it's important for parents to know this, your baby could be anywhere on the spectrum, and your baby is a wonderful, beautiful baby no matter where they are. And to know that how much they cry, how much stress they have - it’s not about your parenting, it's really about what's going on inside of them. And the thing we can do is support it with co-regulation, and when we do, we're building their stress system and all those other mental health systems, to be much more resilient and much better off as they grow up.”

    — Dr Greer Kirshenbaum in conversation with Sophie Brock, Ep #97 The Good Enough Mother

meet

DR Greer

Kirshenbaum

Greer Kirshenbaum, PhD, is a neuroscientist, doula and educator who empowers nurtured parenting, disrupts modern parenting practices to begin new cycles of intergenerational wellness. She is on a mission to revolutionize the future of health and it all begins at the beginning of life.

Greer spent many years studying the brain in a lab and many years using her knowledge while supporting families as a doula. She wants families and perinatal practitioners to understand how caregivers can boost success, thriving, and flourishing, and diminish depression, anxiety, and addiction in adulthood by shaping babies’ brains through simple intuitive enriching experiences in pregnancy, birth, and infancy.

— The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby's Brain and Transform Their Mental Health Through the Art of Nurtured Parenting by Dr Greer Kirshenbaum

“…effort to force a child to be independent can make them more dependent and potentially clingier and more anxious or defiant and avoidant.”

“Becoming a parent is a unique opportunity to learn about your stress system and do inner work within the relationship with your baby”

“We need a society built on healthy baby brains”

Grow Your Baby's Brain and Transform Their Mental Health Through the Art of Nurtured Parenting

The Nurture Revolution:

In this revelatory book, Dr. Kirshenbaum makes plain that nurture is a preventative medicine against mental health issues. She challenges the idea that the way to cultivate independence is through letting babies cry it out or sleep alone; instead, the way to raise a confident, securely attached child is to lean in to nurture, to hold your infant as much as you want, support their emotions, engage in back-and-forth conversations, be present and compassionate when your baby is stressed, and share sleep. Research has proven that nurturing experiences transform lives. Nurturing is a gift of resilience and health parents can give the next generation simply by following their instincts to care for their young.

The latest research in neuroscience and parenting come together in this groundbreaking book, which brings to light new realizations about the power of nurture for our children's mental and physical health outcomes.

“The heart of it is that nearly every system in the brain and body - that we know of - that influence lifelong mental health, are dramatically built in infancy… It's a really special season of life these first three years where the experience that babies have interacts with their genetics and really matters to build the system in their brain that are eventually going to form their mental health”

— Dr Greer Kirshenbaum in conversation with Sophie Brock, Ep #97 The Good Enough Mother

“The myth that responding to cries spoils an infant or teaches an infant to be dependent is one of the biggest untruths of our current low-nurture culture.”

— The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby's Brain and Transform Their Mental Health Through the Art of Nurtured Parenting by Dr Greer Kirshenbaum

connect with DR Greer