In the NICU, many of the core expectations surrounding birth and early motherhood are abruptly disrupted.

Instead of holding your baby skin to skin, you may first see them surrounded by tubes and machines. Instead of predictable rhythms, there are alarms, medical updates, procedures, and unstable vital signs.

Each crisis creates a massive prediction error.

Motherhood creates a chronically elevated stress baseline due to sleep disruption, constant multitasking, emotional labor, and the mental load that never ends. All of this pushes the adrenals to produce more cortisol, which is intensified by caffeine, and can contribute to symptoms commonly labeled as adrenal fatigue.