The Birth Of A Mother: How The Motherhood Experience Changes You Forever

by Daniel N Stern, Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern, Alison Freeland (With)

Overview

As you prepare to become a mother, you face an experience unlike any other in your life. Having a baby will redirect your preferences and pleasures and, most likely, will realign some of your values.As you undergo this unique psychological transformation, you will be guided by new hopes, fears, and priorities. In a most startling way, having a child will influence all of your closest relationships and redefine your role in your family's history. The charting of this remarkable, new realm is the subject of this compelling book.Renowned psychiatrist Daniel N. Stern has joined forces with pediatrician and child psychiatrist Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern and journalist Alison Freeland to paint a wonderfully evocative picture of the psychology of motherhood. At the heart of The Birth of a Mother is an arresting premise: Just as a baby develops physically in utero and after birth, so a mother is born psychologically in the many months that precede and follow the birth of her baby.The recognition of this inner transformation emerges from hundreds of interviews with new mothers and decades of clinical experience. Filled with revealing case studies and personal comments from women who have shared this experience, this book will serve as an invaluable sourcebook for new mothers, validating the often confusing emotions that accompany the development of this new identity. In addition to providing insight into the unique state of motherhood, the authors touch on related topics such as going back to work, fatherhood, adoption, and premature birth.During pregnancy, mothers-to-be talk about morning sickness and their changing bodies, and new mothers talk about their exhaustion, the benefits of nursing or bottle-feeding, and the dilemma of whether or when they should return to work. And yet, they can be strangely mute about the dramatic and often overwhelming changes going on in their inner lives. Finally, with The Birth of a Mother, these powerful feelings are eloquently put into words.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786724628
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	12/03/1998
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Lexile:	1180L (what's this?)
File size:	301 KB

About the Author

Daniel N. Stern, M.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Geneva and adjunct professor of psychiatry at Cornell University Medical Center–New York Hospital. An expert in the mother-infant relationship, he is the author of The Interpersonal World of the Infant and The Diary of a Baby.

Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern, M.D., is a pediatrician and child psychiatrist in Geneva, Switzerland.

Alison Freeland, a freelance writer and the author of The Journey to Motherhood, currently works as a reporter for Vermont Public Radio.

What People are Saying About This

T. Berry Brazelton

The Sterns have given us a warm insightful book about the steps which new mothers must encounter on their road to motherhood. It is comprehensive, deeply understanding--not only of the processes all mothers encounter, but of the grief work when a baby is not easy or normal. Happily, fathers are also included. I loved reading this book and I hope all new parents will too.

Sheila Kitzinger author of The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth

"Written with sensitivity and insight"

T Berry Brazelton

"A warm, insightful book about the steps which new mothers must encounter on their road to motherhood. It is comprehensive, deeply understanding, not only of the processes all mothers encounter, but of the grief work when a baby is not easy or normal. Fathers are also included, happily. I loved reading this book and I hope all new parents will too." -- Professor emeritus, Harvard Medical School, Deprtmetn of Pediatrics, and author of Touchpoints: Your Child's Emotional and Behavioral Development

Ethel Spector Person

A brilliant account of the genesis of a woman's maternal identity. While mothers and about-to-be mothers are well acquainted with the stages of pregnancy and delivery and the postpartum, this book is unique in making available to women the inner psychological process by which a woman becomes a mother long before her baby is born. -- Professor of clinical psychiatry, Columbia University, and author of By Force of Fantasy: How We Make Our Lives

Burton L. White

An in-depth, passionate look at the emotional and mental life of expectant and new mothers. This is, by far, the best book to help you understand the unique feelings and thoughts you will experience as you become a mother. -- Director of The Center for Parent Education and Author of Raising a Happy, Unspoiled Child

Burton White

"An in-depth, passionate look at the emotional and mental life of expectant and new mothers. This is, by far, the best book to help you understand the unique feelings and thoughts you will experience as you become a mother."

Elisabeth Bing

While reading The Birth of a Mother, I wanted to say 'Yes, yes, that's how it was when I became a mother.' I know that for years, or even now, I divided my own life into B.P. (before Peter) and A.P. (anno Peter). All new mothers should read this sensitive book, learn from it and identify with it. -- Author of Laughter and Tears: The Emotional Life of New Mothers

Sheila Kitzinger

d"Written with sensitivity and insight." -- Author of Becoming a Grandmother: A Life Transition

Editorial Reviews

The author of Diary of a Baby turns his attentive eye on motherhood in this reassuring and uniquely substantive volume that focuses on new mothers. Based on close observation and hundreds of interviews with the mothers of young children, Stern, an infant psychiatrist who teaches at Cornell University Medical Center-New York Hospital, describes the complex emotional shifts that women experience as they travel from pregnancy through birth and into their baby's newborn period. For some, the transition into the new state of motherhood is instantaneous; for others, the initiation requires time. But all find the transformation profound, thoroughly changing their view of themselves, their relationships and the world. Stern offers his own perspective on the normal development changes that may be taking place, from concerns during pregnancy to changing relationships women may be experiencing with their own mothers, to building a matrix of helpful friends, to a baby's impact on a marriage. Of particular value are the descriptions, delivered in sensory, immediate prose, of the interactions between a wide array of mothers and their babies. Most stunning is a detailed evocation of a three-minute interaction between a mother and her baby that shows how, even when the mother doesn't respond perfectly, she is still doing well enough. It's hard to imagine a new mother who would not be inspired, reassured and encouraged by Stern's moving and thoughtful account. (Mar.) FYI: Basic will simultaneously reissue Stern's classic Diary of a Baby in paper.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Mothers are not created by the act of giving birth. Instead, argue the authors, the "motherhood mindset" begins to take shape during pregnancy and is created as parents care for their infant in the weeks and months after the birth. Most women find themselves shifting more attention to other women who are more experienced mothers during this time in an effort to find role models for this new identity. Special sections discuss the problems encountered by the new mothers of handicapped and premature babies, who often feel a sense of failure or inability to bond with their child. Other chapters discuss the impact of parenthood on the marriage and the question of juggling career and baby. Throughout, the focus is on the mother's developing sense of self. Brenda Eheart's The Fourth Trimester (Prentice-Hall, 1983) covers similar ground but does not include as much information on marriage and career concerns. In general, this title would be very useful to expectant mothers and is recommended for public libraries serving areas with young families.Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, Wash.

Library Journal

A serious psychological foray into What to Expect When You're Expecting territory. Psychiatrist Stern (The Diary of a Baby, 1990, etc.) presents a thoughtful guide to the psychological impact of motherhood. Following the expecting and new mother through the various stages of her experience—creating an imaginary baby while pregnant, feelings of inadequacy and contentment that come after the birth, planning the baby's future, determining whether to go back to work—the authors explain what is happening to her psychologically and emotionally. They demonstrate how each phase of the process contributes to the birth of the "motherhood mindset," a new state of mind that puts her role as mother before all else (Stern's theory runs counter to traditional psychological beliefs that we retain one mindset, or "basic psychic organization," throughout our lives). Stories of individual women, in particular three whom the authors follow from their sixth month of pregnancy, resonate strongly in parts, and all women will find aspects of their own life, as either a mother or child, in this generally soothing study. Especially interesting are the sections that explore the changing relationship of the new mother to her own mother, the expectations parents place on their children (as peacemakers or antidepressants, for example), and the importance of fantasies as a first step in establishing the motherhood mindset. The work-and-family question, however, is handled perfunctorily, and while the authors are generally careful about not judging new mothers, they have no understanding for mothers who choose to work when they are not financially obliged to. Although too slim to fully explore thepsychological development of mothers, this book offers key insights into the process.

Kirkus Reviews