What do you get when you combine HGTV with pregnancy? Oxytocin-fueled extreme home makeovers, according to this article from the New York Times: Nesting with a Vengeance (and a Deadline).
This is a lifestyles trend piece, not a science story, but the writer dragged in a couple of doctors as well as interior designers to describe the lengths to which some women go to get the house ready for baby:
Typically, projects resulting from the nesting instinct have been small-scale affairs — a cleaning jag, a den converted to a nursery with a little paint and drywall, a changing station built into a laundry room. But lately, even as the housing and renovation markets have slumped, some pregnant nesters have been getting more ambitious, spurred on by the widespread home-improvement mania of the last decade and by the plethora of design-themed magazines and television shows.
I'm sure women who have to work as long as they can before their due dates -- as well as ones who don't have an extra hundred grand sitting in the bank -- still make do with a coat of paint.
