The Surprising Way Men's Brains Change After They Become Parents

Dad jokes, dad bod, dad… brain?

A new study adds to a growing body of evidence that birth mothers aren’t the only ones who undergo neurological developments after a child’s arrival. Dads’ brains change too — and it appears that these changes have an impact on their sleep and mental health.

Curtis Davis, a university professor, is the father of toddler twins who were born during the pandemic. He told HuffPost that the work of caring for them has been intense.

“[My wife and I] have careers, too, that could be demanding,” he said. “If there’s a gender norm or gender expectation, I kind of threw it out the window.”

When it comes to allocating the work of parenting, “it’s really about whoever gets to it,” Davis said. “If I recognize there’s something that needs to be handled, I just jump in.”

Davis does feel the weight of all this responsibility, both on his psyche and his sleep patterns. His job provides the children’s health coverage, and “there’s definitely some anxiety that comes with that,” he said.

He finds himself “being on pins and needles a little bit more,” he said. “The stress is definitely there.”

The highs of hands-on parenting, too, are significant. Davis and other dads reap great fulfillment from caring for their children.

It turns out, this caregiving actually alters dads’ brains

Darby Saxbe, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California, has conducted multiple studies using MRI scans to measure changes in the brains of men who became fathers. Saxbe and her fellow researchers found that fathers lost brain volume — their brains grew smaller — after they became parents.

This shrinking of grey matter is similar to what other studies have found in women who became mothers, although the loss