Down to Birth
Join Cynthia Overgard and Trisha Ludwig once per week for evidence-based straight talk on having a safe and informed birth, which starts with determining if you've hired the right provider. If we had to boil it down to a single premise, it's this: A healthy mom and baby isn't all that matters. We have more than 30 years' experience between us in midwifery, informed rights advocacy, publishing, childbirth education, postpartum support and breastfeeding, and we've personally served thousands of women and couples. Listen to the birth stories of our clients, listeners and celebrities, catch our expert-interviews, and submit your questions for our monthly Q&A episodes by calling us at 802-GET-DOWN. We're on Instagram at @downtobirthshow and also at Patreon.com/downtobirthshow, where we offer live ongoing events multiple times per month, so be sure to join our worldwide community. We are a Top .5% podcast globally with listeners in more than 80 countries every week. Become informed, empowered, and have a great time in the process. Join us and reach out any time - we love to hear from you. And as always, hear everyone, listen to yourself.
Down to Birth
#321 | Spoil Your Baby: The Neuroscience of Thriving Baby Brains with Dr. Greer Kirschenbaum, PhD
Neuroscientist and author of The Nurture Revolution, Dr. Greer Kirschenbaum, PhD, joins us today to discuss the profound impact of nurturing care in the first three years of life. Drawing from decades of brain research, Greer explains how responsive, connected parenting in early life lays the neurological foundation for emotional regulation, mental health, and lifelong resilience—and why this critical window is so often misunderstood, underestimated, or dismissed.
We also explore the neurobiology of fatherhood: how the dad's brain transforms during the postpartum period, how these changes depend on direct contact with the baby, and why emotional and hormonal shifts in men—though delayed in comparison to those in mothers—are no less critical. Greer shares research on baby-wearing, skin-to-skin, and how even daily rituals like bathing or making a habit of smelling the baby cause a rapid and necessary rewiring of the paternal brain toward deeper connection and long-term involvement.
We also discussed trends in parenting, from the "be home by dinnertime" style of the 80s to the scheduled, anxious, overbearing parents who followed that generation. We considered the impact of parents who place excessive emphasis on a school-age child's emotions day in and day out, at the risk of foregoing important opportunities for teaching resilience.
This conversation challenges outdated notions of independence, debunks harmful myths around bonding and separation, and makes a strong, evidence-based case for what Greer calls the "nurture revolution”.
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