Pregnancy isn’t just about a baby bump—it’s also a massive hormonal and physiological shift, including how the body regulates temperature.

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited, I’m joined by Dr. Rosie Brown, a Senior Lecturer and Group Leader at the University of Otago in New Zealand. We dive into the hormone prolactin—its role in motherhood and the brain—and explore her team’s groundbreaking research on how prolactin helps regulate body temperature during pregnancy. Tune in for a fascinating conversation on all things prolactin and parenting!

For more information on Dr Brown’s research see:

https://www.otago.ac.nz/neuroendocrinology/research/rosie-brown

Here is the citation and link to the publication we talk about:

Ladyman SR, Georgescu TR, Stewart AM, Khant Aung Z, Cheong I, Grattan DR, Brown RSE. Prolactin modulation of thermoregulatory circuits provides resilience to thermal challenge of pregnancy. Cell Rep. 2025 Apr 22;44(4):115567. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115567. Epub 2025 Apr 11. PMID: 40215163.

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Prof Dr Natalya Chechko, a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy at Aachen University.

We talk about her recent research investigating maternal brain changes and mental health. We also talk about the neuroendocrine factors that may be involved and how to visualize them in the human brain. Fascinating research! Enjoy.

For more information on Dr Chechko’s research see here .

Here is a link to her recent .

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Katie Haigler, a graduate student at Penn State, about her research detailing how the maternal brain processes infant and adult emotion cues - aiding in our understanding of emotion regulation in parents. Interesting!

For more about Katie’s research see

https://hhd.psu.edu/contact/katherine-haigler

Here is a direct link to the paper we talk about.