The Science Baby Podcast

How soon can you know whether your baby is going to be right or left handed, and what can that tell you about how their brains are developing? Kim and Leila dive into the surprising science that links dominant hand with language, emotion, genes, and the environment. And since Science Baby himself is a leftie, we consider his experience growing up in a right-handed world.

In this episode:

• We introduce the idea of handedness bei...

Okay, maybe not everyone's relationship with their loved one is in the pan after having a child, but anecdotally and statistically, many parents find themselves facing relationship challenges with a little one in the mix. 

Leila and Kim are no exceptions, and we share a very cathartic chat about how and why our marriages have changed, and what we can do about it. 

In this episode:

• We set the scene by describing our relationshi...

As babies and toddlers learn to move around and experience the world, they're soon going to be accumulating injuries, whether from their own fingernails or from the inevitable bumps and scrapes of toddlerdom.

But no sooner do those injuries appear, than they heal, uncannily quickly, and rarely leaving behind any scars at all. We dive into what's going in inside their tiny Wolverine bodies to give them this super-healing ability. 

I...

When your baby is a few months old, it's time to start facing down the next big milestone in your parenting journey: weaning them onto solid foods. But while the official guidance is clear, the advice you get from different people can vary. So when should you start the process?

Right now, Kim is just about to start weaning, and Leila is shocked to discover that she and Felix have been at the solid foods game for over two years. So ...

Around three months after giving birth, many women are alarmed to find their hair starting to fall out. Although this is a pretty ubiquitous anacdote shared among new mothers, the science - where it exists - tells us that it might not be a real phenomenon.

In this episode, Leila and Kim dive into the pitiful research that has been done to figure out if postpartum hairloss is a real thing, and what might be causing ...

On average, one in every four pregnancies ends in loss, and yet miscarriage, stillbirth, and pregnancy loss are still taboo subjects in many cultures. As a result, women who go through it experience shame, guilt, and loneliness which is entirely a product of attitude, and not science. This Baby Loss awareness week, we want to cast a light on a not at all uncommon phenomenon. 

In this episode:

• Leila and Kim share and compare th...

Mothers these days might be told that 'breast is best' when it comes to feeding their baby. But what does that mean for mothers that struggle with their breastfeeding journey? We dive into the chemistry of breastmilk and formula, as well as the science behind the choice you make. 

In this epsiode:

• We compare our very different baby feeding experiences - Kim has breastfed, while Leila never nursed, but used a combination of pum...

Social media can be a great tool for discovering new people and new things (like this podcast!) but for new, impressionable, and unsure parents, it can often do more harm than good. 

In this episode:

• The era we're living in right now is shaped by our interactions on social media
• How algorithms work to find and serve what you secretly want
• Our personal experiences with social media through our parenting journeys
• How social medi...

There is a fundamental conflict between how babies sleep and how adults sleep, and it's causing us way more stress than it needs to.

In this episode: 

• Our personal experiences with out babies' sleep
• The biology of sleep, including sleep-wake homeostasis and circadian rhythms
• Helen Ball and colleagues' book 'How Babies Sleep'
• The science of sleep cycles and sleep consolidation
• Differences between children
• Cultural pressures
• How...

It's the very first installment of The Science Baby Podcast!

A chance for you to get acquainted with your hosts, Leila and Kim. We're two science communicators and first time mums trying to understand the science behind pregnancy, birth and beyond.

In this episode:

• Our respective journeys to motherhood
• Our professional and nerdy backgrounds
•  We chat about matrescence, maternal mental health and the medicalization of birth
• Why ...