Having a baby physically shrinks part of a woman's brain. Having a second baby shrinks a totally different part. Scientists in Amsterdam just figured out why, and the explanation involves the same process that happens in teenage brains.
This is from a research group in Amsterdam called the Pregnancy Brain Lab. They published their findings in Nature Communications on February 19, 2026. The team scanned the brains of 110 women. 40 were about to have their first baby, 30 were about to have their second, and 40 had never been pregnant. They scanned everyone before pregnancy and again after birth.
The results were so consistent that a computer program could look at any of those brain scans and correctly tell whether the woman had been pregnant. Every single time.
When a woman has her first baby, the biggest changes happen in the part of the brain that handles thinking about yourself and other people. The same region that runs daydreaming and inner monologue. That whole area visibly shrinks. And it stays shrunk for at least six years after birth, according to a 2021 follow-up study by the same team.
When she has a second baby, that same area shifts a little more, but the biggest changes happen somewhere else. They happen in the part of the brain that controls what you focus on, and the part that controls how your body moves. Even the wiring between the brain and the muscles becomes more efficient. Lead researcher Milou Straathof said it looks like the brain rewiring itself for taking care of more than one kid at a time.
The shrinking sounds bad. The lab compares it to what happens in teenage brains during puberty. Hormones flood the brain and trigger a kind of cleanup. Weak connections between brain cells get cleared away. The strong ones stay and get stronger. The brain ends up smaller, but the connections that remain work faster. The hormonal flood of pregnancy seems to do the same thing.
Elseline Hoekzema, who runs the Pregnancy Brain Lab and has been studying this since 2017, told CNN: sometimes less is more.
The pattern is layered. The first pregnancy does the deep work on identity and how a mom thinks about her baby. The second pregnancy adds a new layer focused on attention and movement.
About one in five new mothers globally develops postpartum depression. The same brain circuits being remodeled here are the ones tied to mood and bonding with the baby. Mapping what a healthy maternal brain looks like is the first step toward catching when something goes wrong.
You’re missing the point. Jews in AD 33 were basically homogeneous - a few mostly-female converts marrying in, but that’s about it. Jews were a coherent people, a “race” in the 19th century sense of the word. But today? Genetic surveys show that Palestinians share more DNA with ancient Levantines than Ashkenazi Jews do. Around the world, there are more non-Jews carrying some portion of Jewish DNA than there are Jews.
What can be said about Jews today that has general validity? There are religious and atheist Jews, Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews, black, white, and brown Jews. There’s a reason a Gallup poll a few years ago showed that most Jews (by a wide margin) said “Remembering the Holocaust” was the most important part of Jewish identity - the shared sense of threat and victimhood is the only thing that holds together a group of people that otherwise have nothing in common.
The Israel of AD 33 disappeared. Its ritual observance ceased, its language was forgotten, and its genetic heritage was scattered and dispersed among the nations. The Zionists of 1948 are akin to mixed ancestry Irish-Americans invading Ireland, saying they were the true Irish people come to reclaim land that is theirs by right, and ethnically cleansing Ireland of its inhabitants. The idea that there’s some clear continuity between Jews of the Bible and those who invaded Palestine is pure fantasy.
Today, I saw a bar of “Dubai chocolate” shamelessly gleaming on a market stall shelf, surrounded by snacks, nuts, and coffee — in a city where you can’t even find a single pill of medicine. I felt the rage choke my heart.
Just four days ago, I went through every pharmacy in Khan Younis looking for medicine for my son Mahdi — and only managed to find it through connections. No medicine, no meat, no chicken, no fuel, and nothing to sustain our lives even for one day. Everything that nourishes the body and soul is forbidden to us.
This is what they call famine engineering: they open the crossings for candy, coffee, and nuts to fool the world into thinking we’re okay — while denying us what keeps people alive. They want us to look like actors, not the starving. Like corpses, not the living.
How can a person live on snacks?
What filthy theater is this world — and the occupation forces — playing with us?
What the hell is this?
It’s a famine meticulously designed, controlled by buttons from afar — deciding when we eat, when we survive, when we live, and when we die.
What kind of cruelty is this?
And what kind of world chooses chocolate over medicine?
This pain has gone beyond hunger — the sorrow lives more in the heart than the stomach.
تلةٌ صغيرة كانت يومًا ما موقعًا لإقامة نموذجٍ مصغّرٍ لقلعة الرستاق ، في فترةٍ شهدت خلالها الولايات تنافسًا جميلًا في تنفيذ المشاريع المجتمعية والجمالية ضمن فعاليات شهر البلديات.
واليوم، وانسجامًا مع مقتضيات المصلحة العامة ، تُزال هذه التلة ضمن أعمال مشروع تهيئة وتوسعة طريق الحزم – الوشيل، وإنشاء شارع الخدمات المرافق له بولاية #الرستاق
The Qassam Shadow Unit, its very name sends tremors through the corridors of Zionist intelligence, symbolizing the highest form of clandestine warfare and security professionalism in the modern era. To outsiders, it’s a ghostly entity, no faces, no leaks, no statements, just flawless execution and results that leave adversaries bewildered and in awe.
❤️🩹“I made this for my daughter, whose birthday was supposed to be in five days,” said a freed Palestinian hostage, clutching a small bracelet he made for her. He had just learned that the Israeli occupation had killed all his children Baraa, 8 years old; Iman, 5; and his 2-year-old daughter. “My loved ones are dead… my children are dead,” he cried, collapsing under the weight of loss.
shawqi_maghnam (IG)
❤️🩹“I made this for my daughter, whose birthday was supposed to be in five days,” said a freed Palestinian hostage, clutching a small bracelet he made for her. He had just learned that the Israeli occupation had killed all his children Baraa, 8 years old; Iman, 5; and his 2-year-old daughter. “My loved ones are dead… my children are dead,” he cried, collapsing under the weight of loss.
shawqi_maghnam (IG)
اليوم تواصل معي علي، شقيق صالح الأصغر، وتبيّن أن شقيقه الأسير ناجي الجعفراوي من المقرر أن يُفرج عنه اليوم ضمن صفقة التبادل، وهو الاسم الذي كان صالح ينتظره على نار، يعدّ الساعات شوقاً للّقاء 💔
لكن يا الله، ما أقساها… رحل صالح قبل أن يعانق ناجي، واليوم ينتظر الجميع خروج ناجي، والصدمة الأكبر ستكون حين لا يجد صالح بانتظاره.
في سجن "عوفر" حيث تضيق السماء وتُختبر الأرواح، التقيت بالأسير ناجي الجعفراوي — ذاك الرجل الذي يحمل في صوته نورًا وفي قلبه وطنًا.
ناجي، إمام مسجد الكتيبة في غزة، وشقيق الشهيد صالح الجعفراوي، كان قريبًا مني كما الأخ من أخيه، تقاسمنا لقمة الجوع، ووجع القيد، وصمت الليل المليء بالحنين.
كان في الزنزانة ونسًا، إذا قرأ القرآن سكن كل شيء، وإذا دعا ارتجف الجدار بخشوعٍ صادق.
كان يخطب بنا وكأننا في مسجد الكتيبة من جديد، يذكّرنا بأن السجن امتحانٌ للقلوب، لا للأجساد، وأن الله يرى صبرنا ويعد لنا فجرًا لا يُؤجَّل.
لم يكن يتحدث كثيرًا عن نفسه، لكن عينيه كانتا تفضحان شوقه الكبير لأخيه صالح، ذاك الفتى الذي حمل الكاميرا بصدق المجاهدين، وصوّر الحقيقة حتى صار هو نفسه مشهدًا من مشاهدها.
أتذكر كيف أخبرني ناجي أن المحقق الإسرائيلي هدده مرارًا: "سنغتال أخاك صالحًا إن لم يصمت".
وكان ناجي يرد بهدوء المؤمن: "أمرُ صالحٍ عند الله، لا عندكم".
اليوم، رحل صالح شهيدًا، وبقي ناجي أسيرًا، لكن كليهما حرّ بطريقته.
أحدهما يسكن السماء، والآخر يضيء ظلمة الزنازين بآيات الصبر.
وكلما تذكرت أصواته في السجن، وصدى القرآن في ممرات "عوفر"، أدركت أن الحديد لا يقوى على كتم الإيمان، وأن الرجال الذين يشبهون ناجي، يُهزم أمامهم السجن والعدو معًا.
❗️As soon as the Israeli occupation forces withdrew, life began returning to Gaza as if by magic. In the ruins and silence, animals like puppies and ducks started to appear again across Gaza City, small signs of life pushing through the devastation, reminding everyone that Gaza still breathes.
ehab_nuor (IG)