What No One Tells You

Your guide to the emotions of pregnancy and early motherhood, from two of America’s top reproductive psychiatrists.

When you are pregnant, you get plenty of advice about your growing body and developing baby. Yet so much about motherhood happens in your head. What every pregnant woman really wants to know: is this normal? Is it normal for my sex drive to disappear or to go into overdrive? Is it normal to have nesting urges or an overloaded “mommy brain”? Is it normal for my parents to be acting out? Is it normal not to feel love at first sight for my baby? Is it normal to argue with my partner? For Dr. Sacks and Dr. Birndorf, the answer is yes.

In What No One Tells You, two of America’s top reproductive psychiatrists provide a road map for mothers-to-be, detailing the complicated emotions that bubble up and explaining the psychological and hormonal backstory as to why. With 30 years of combined experience counseling mothers, they show why it’s natural for “matrescence”—the birth of a mother—to be as stressful and transformative a period as adolescence. Here, finally, is the first ever practical guide to help new mothers feel less guilt and more self-esteem, less isolation and more kinship, less resentment and more intimacy, less exhaustion and more pleasure, and learn other tips to navigate the ups and downs of this exciting, demanding time.