I've often heard women talk about having "pregnancy brain" or "placenta brain"--those momentary (or lengthy) bouts of forgetfulness or absentmindedness due, supposedly, to being pregnant. Just tonight, in fact, I was asking an acquaintance of mine to remind me to pick her up for a playgroup tomorrow, if I didn't show up on time. "I have a pretty bad memory," I said.
"Oh, especially right now," another friend of mine said knowingly, meaning because I was pregnant.
"No, not because of being pregnant--just because I have a bad memory for appointments!" I said.
Both women were very surprised to hear that I'd never experienced pregnancy-induced forgetfulness. Never anything of the sort. My brain functions just as well when I'm pregnant as when I'm not. But I've heard so many women talk about placenta brain and pregnancy brain...and I'm wondering: is there any sort of information on this phenomenon, besides anecdotal experiences? Does pregnancy brain really exist, or is it just a convenience excuse for normal memory lapses that happen to occur during pregnancy?
I noticed it until I started taking cod liver oil. It might be because your nutrients are being routed to your babe. And then there's this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11827871
I've heard of breastfeeding brain, too. :)
I know when my sister was pregnant, she had many more mental processing problems than she normally does. She has a great memory, and her mind is put together.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that it was debunked... but have also heard enough anecdotal stories about it to wonder how accurate the study debunking it was. :-)
ReplyDeleteIt seems they put women through cognitive tests -- either the same group of women at different points in their life, or two groups of women, one pregnant, one not -- and they scored the same. {shrug}
Perhaps it is a convenient excuse (one of my friends blamed her rear-ending another car on being pregnant), but I think there's something to it. Perhaps we just have so much on our minds while pregnant or while breastfeeding (or maybe it's a lack of nutrients), that we don't always concentrate on other things like we should or like we used to.
-Kathy
I had trouble thinking while pregnant, but I was hyperemetic - starve the brain of nutrients, and it's not going to function as well.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder if the disturbed sleep patterns affect memory retention during pregnancy - I was getting up during the night to vomit, but friends of mine told me that they had trouble sleeping as well.
I think my memory is worse when I'm pregnant and have an infant for the matter. But I'm fairly confident that for me it's due to being tired, sick, having extra things to think about, etc.
ReplyDeleteIn The Female Brain, the author (a female neuroscientist of some sort) says it's a myth that you lose brain cells during pregnancy, but that your brain cells do actually shrink (but expand back afterwards).
ReplyDeleteIt's a fascinating read, but also interesting was an article I read yesterday about another female neuroscientist who has 'debunked' a lot of what we think/know about brain gender-differentiation. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/science/24scibks.html
I have often felt that I experience pregnancy-induced aphasia -- where I have the hardest time thinking of words that normally are on the tip of my tongue (and I am generally quite proud of my vocabulary :P). My memory for other things seems unaffected.
I've never heard that it's a myth. All I know is that when I was pregnant my memory was awful! Both before and after I was pregnant I can name the title and singer of every song on the radio, talk about which stars were in which movie and so on, but while pregnant I continually drew a huge blank. The worst happened when I lost my wedding ring and spent several hours frantically looking for it, only to remember that I dropped it off to be cleaned. So, I really don't think it's a myth, but I might take Cod Liver Oil next time and see if that helps.
ReplyDeleteI have absolutely had placenta brain. One of my children said to me, "Mama, you get forgetfuller the pregnanter you get." Interesting about the fish oil -- it was less pronounced when I was pregnant with my daughter, and that's the only pregnancy in which I was supplementing with fish oil.
ReplyDeletePersonally speaking, I can attest to this phenomenon. I work full time as an engineer, and when pregnant I make silly mistakes at work, and often repeat tasks because I don't remember that I ever did them. I find it to be quite embarassing, as my performance is much better when not pregnant. In fact, I remember coming back to work from my last maternity leave, and feeling so sharp and on top of things -- like my job was not nearly as difficult as it was when I had left.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I read an article in the last year or so that there was some scientific evidence behind "baby brain". I remember the tile was "Does pregnancy make you stupid?". Unfortunately, being 7 months pregnant, I completely forget where I read it...
I always thought it was weird, too. My brain seems totally fine when I'm pregnant. Just more focused on food. :)
ReplyDeleteI have personally experiences "placenta brain" or "pregnant brain." I talked to my midwife about it during my pregnancy and she told me that it's because there is decreased blood flow to the brain during pregnancy--so that there's more blood available for the placenta. I never looked it up to see if she was speaking from research, but I'd be interested to know if you find some to back up any of these claims!
ReplyDeleteHonestly, anytime I don't get much sleep my memory fails me terribly...and I do NOT sleep well when I'm pregnant...therefore, it is no wonder that that memory doesn't ever fully come back until that sweet baby is old enough to let me sleep for 8 hours again. So, I think that it has a lot to do with sleep deprivation...and perhaps there is nutrient loss if you're not eating right while preggo??
ReplyDeleteis this your way of saying you are pregnant??? or did I totally miss something?
ReplyDeleteok clearly I missed Zari's secret lol
ReplyDeletecongratulations!! and I must admit I'm a tad envious! Dio was born just a week before I had Ven. *sigh* he grew up too quickly. congrats!
The link below is helpful - it discusses several large studies on the issue
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/08/pregnancy-maternity-sharpen-womens-brains
I found I was distracted by the pregnancy more than forgetful or less intelligent than usual. The baby on the way was always more exciting than mundane aspects of everyday life. Now that she's here I'm still distracted. The difference is that now I'm focused on making sure that she has everything she needs. I suppose it's all rather unscientific; just my personal experience.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.endocrine-abstracts.org/ea/0021/ea0021p325.htm
ReplyDeleteI read that t was debunked (http://www.growingyourbaby.com/2010/02/04/researchers-call-baby-brain-a-myth/). But, I know that being pregnant (and a new mother) made me more tired and that tiredness caused my memory to fail more often. So maybe it's not the pregnancy as much as what the pregnancy does to your body.
ReplyDeleteI seemed to have a lot more memory problems in the early part of my pregnancy but I think it was mostly due to the fact that I was exhausted all the time and I just have trouble remembering things when I'm tired. It's definitely much better now that the sleepiness has improved.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing at least one study talking about a 20 yr old pregnant woman having the memory capacity of a 60yr old, or some such. But I'm no good at ratting out bad studies, and I don't remember now where it was.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotally, I had it. For me it was more twisting up my words. I had a harder time getting sentences to come out the way I'd intended. Yes, this happens to me anyway, but being pregnant it was like DAILY. "Honey, go toss the dog for the ball would you? Oh, wait..."
I've also heard it described as kind of a rerouting, your brain is switching gears so to speak, to protector/gatherer mode, your memory is better for where that one toy got left (food sources, comparatively) and picking out your babies cry in a crowd, versus less necessary-to-survive functions. I like that explanation. :)
ReplyDeletei just think that we are doing such important work of the inner world, on other planes, wherever when we are pregnant that we aren't fully engaged with the normal world. so it's not so much as forgetting...it's like we are living in the chrysalis.....i think i wrote a blog post about this when i was pregnant with my third. it was like the world was going on around me, but i was really communicating on another level, somewhere else.....
ReplyDeleteit's amazing and it's not a fault, it's a gift.....
love
mb
I definitely thought I had "pregnancy brain" when I got pregnant with my first. BUT... my original brain never came back. I have to write everything down now. Maybe it's just having this other human being occupying so much of your mind that takes up space? Who knows.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI think there was a recent study showing it was a myth. I actually hate it when people suggest any memory failing of mine is due to my pregnancy - after all, I forgot things before! I actually find it a bit sexist, a sort of women can't cope kind of thing. I am glad the research debunked it - can you imagine some employer saying to a woman she had to stop working because he couldn't rely on her cognitively, because she was pregnant, or might be pregnant?
I believe it to be true. I was forgetful before, but since having kids I can't remember or focus on anything for the life of me. Maybe because there is so much more going on in my headspace now? But there might be truth to differences in the brain itself too. I used to be a fairly decent singer before I had kids...I would sing in bands, I won awards, eveyrone always praised my voice. Now I couldn't carry a tune if it was in a bucket duct taped to my chest while I was shackled to a chair. What's that about??
ReplyDeleteI'd love to read some research in this area. From my own experience, being pregnant is a bit like being jet-lagged. I live in Germany and spend my days in two languages. When I am pregnant (or jet-lagged), I have issues recalling words in one of the languages. During labor, I couldn't speak a word of Germany until stage 2 kicked in. I think in both cases, it is an issue of energy and focus. My technical English (the language in which I work) was never effected by the pregnancy. It is simple everyday words that escape me!
ReplyDeleteCertainly my memory was as sharp as ever while I was pregnant (and I have a very good memory to start with)--I even had a prof remark that I disproved the theory about pregnancy brain. I think I saw a blurb in Mothering once, mentioning a study that debunked the idea of pregnancy brain.
ReplyDeleteAfter giving birth--now that was when my brain checked out. I developed a fairly problematic nominal aphasia. The fridge became "that thing in the kitchen that keeps stuff cold" and a car became "that thing you drive around in" and even the cat became "that black and white thing I had to get a, a, a . . . a rabies shot for so I could bring it back to, um . . . Canada." Conversations became very frustrating and lots of times I'd just give up and shut up because I couldn't explain what I meant in a way that anyone could understand. This was quite marked for about 2 years after my daughter was born. It's pretty much fixed itself now, but some days I have trouble if I'm really preoccupied or stressed. It has been remarkable to lose (and thankfully, regain) the ability to remember most of the nouns I know! Interestingly, I never had a problem with writing--only speaking. I have assumed the problem has something to do with hormones related to breastfeeding, and because my daughter breastfeeds less now, the hormones are less, and my mind works better.
I have often wondered about this, too (especially now that I am pregnant)! I haven't yet done the required rooting around in Web of Science, but this popular book may offer some insight: The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter by Katherine Ellison (http://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Brain-Motherhood-Makes-Smarter/dp/0465019056)
ReplyDeleteAaaaand, is this post a hint that baby #3 is on the way??
I am always forgetful, and I didn't notice a big difference when I was pregnant :)
ReplyDeleteAt least people are more forgiving for like 2 years- first it's because you're pregnant, and then becaues you're a new mom. I'll take what I can get :)
I didn't experience "pregnancy brain", my memory started giving me trouble AFTER the baby was born, and I'm pretty sure it was caused by lack of sleep...
ReplyDeleteActually as has been stated several times, I don't think it's a myth of the brain functioning, but rather it really is all about anecdotal evidence - some women experience not because their brain isn't running as well, but rather they are occupied by other things and have a switch in brain priorities. It may also be due to some women not getting enough quality sleep, worrying more, being excited about the baby, dealing with new stressors, etc. In this case the anecdotal evidence should speak more than science since it clearly does not affect every pregnant woman. Personally my brain has been in overdrive but I use "pregnancy brain" as a convenient excuse for when I don't want to listen or care about what someone else is saying, hah!
ReplyDeleteWhat I have found is that I don't forget things or have trouble with thinking, I have trouble is decisiveness when pregnant. So when trying to remember something I remember fine I just don't feel quite like I am correct about what I am remembering. But I expect this is due the high levels of progesterone and estrogen.
ReplyDeleteSo, while the description is anecdotal it is actual an effect that is real but misdirected - it isn't memory or brain function that is affected but decisiveness which can easily be characterized as being a testosterone fueled effect (like higher testosterone makes one more like to decide and committed to those decisions.)
I love all these comments!! Such an interesting mix of (mostly) women, with unique insights and areas of expertise and experience.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea that Stassja brought up, about the brain re-routing, re-prioritizing. However, it also stands to reason, no matter what research does or doesn't show, that lack of nutrition (from hyperemesis, etc.) and interrupted sleep patterns will have an adverse reaction on one's ability to think clearly.
I also find it *VERY* interesting that several women have associated aphasia with pregnancy/birth/mothering. I find myself with worsening aphasia (though I couldn't think of the term "aphasia"!!), and am now wondering if it does have something to do with hormones. Hm.
Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I've seen on Dr Phil, or the Oz show, or The Doctors something about pregnancy brain being true. I know it can affect sleep patterns, and that REALLY affects my memory.
I remember reading a study a couple of years ago that said pregnancy brain didn't exist and then another came out about a year ago that said it did.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm more forgetful, but I think a lot of it is the exhaustion and the focus of the brain on the growing life inside rather than on the outside things.
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=113080
ReplyDeleteI also missed you were pregnant again!! Congrats!!
ReplyDeleteI had missed Zari's secret (though I just went back and watched and my little boys were excited to watch it)-- congratulations!
ReplyDeleteI didn't notice the effect so much during pregnancy as after. Alas, it got worse each time. Our standard line is that each of the four pregnancies stole a certain amount of brain cells from me and it was cumulative.
ReplyDeleteI had my children late in life so age and perimenopause hormonal shifts also figure into the equation.
Now, as a very middle-aged person, the memory lapses and aphasia I'm experiencing are pretty disconcerting, esp for someone who used to have a good memory. I'm esp bad at names of people (used to be great at this) and I often search for common words ("that thing in the kitchen that keeps things cold", heh!).
Funny thing is I still have a good memory for data and studies, but a crap memory for people's names and common words. I'm the personification of the absent-minded professor.
It's very distressing but other women my age are experiencing similar things so I try not to worry too much. Hopefully it's a by-product of menopause and will improve with time.
I can dream, can't I?
I have heard that it can be linked to essential fatty acid deficiency...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.naturalnews.com/028391_pregnancy_nutrition.html
I always bristle at that term. It seems inherently sexist and demeaning to pregnant women to me. Yes, I can understand how someone who is pregnant can be tired, or preoccupied, but so can many people for many reasons. "Pregnancy brain" to me seems to imply all pregnant women have thinking problems, and that rubs me the wrong way. And no, I had no problems with thinking or memory when I was pregnant.
ReplyDeleteI have been really, really behind on my blog reader...did I miss that you are pregnant again?? (I am really embarrassed if you announced this months ago). Congrats!!
I found this and thought of this conversation. I hope its not a duplicate of another post. There were too many for me to very thoroughly check all the links!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mybabyconnection.com/PregnancyArticles/PregnancyBrainShrinkage.htm
I have noticed a change in my memory since my birth, and now that I'm pregnant again I have noticed some more changes in my memory. But that's just anecdotal :)
I like what Stassja said: a rerouting of sorts, getting comfortably settled into that right brain, which is non linear, non quantified, non linguistic, totally in tune with baby--a lot like the hypnotic high of labour, but more functional. That rings true for me.
ReplyDeleteI definitely have had pregnancy brain all 3 of my pregnancies, two of which I've been taking fish oil supplements for the duration. For me, it manifests mostly as an inability to make decisions. This is very noticeable because I'm normally a very decisive person. It's one of my stronger characteristics. It DIS-A-PPEARS when I'm pregnant. I also have memory difficulties, which is embarrassingly evident at work (I'm a paramedic--it's important that I REMEMBER STUFF). Fortunately, we work in pairs. So my partner covers my butt for me. And after my maternity leave (year long: yay Canada!), I go back sharper than ever. Like Victoria.
Not scientific, but there you go. That's all I have to offer, is anecdotal on this topic, I'm afraid! =)
p.s. I kind of get offended by the women who get offended by the possibility of 'pregnancy brain.' I hope that makes sense. It's kind of hard to experience something difficult or limiting in one's life, and have other people discredit it as a myth. I understand the aversion to sexism and/or prejudice, and/or placing all women in one category together--you *all* get pregnancy brain, for example! But it's unfair to discredit other womens' experiences just because some women are fortunate enough not to experience them. And if a problem exists and could be problematic for women at risk of prejudicial treatment, perhaps we should find the root cause, rather than insist it doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteMy $0.02.
This article is from the American Psychological Association's Monitor on Psychology in 2008:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/09/pregnancy.aspx
She talks about *slight* decreases in learning and memory during pregnancy, but that there are also major benefits worth noting. It's important to remember that all of these studies are focused on aggregate results so they don't capture any one woman's experiences.
I would also recommend "The Mommy Brain" when looking into the questionable nature of this annoying phenomenon... She goes very in depth with her research about it, but in a nutshell it can be explained by a really intriguing physiological process. Apparently, the period right after giving birth is the only time our adult brains form new neurons. During pregnancy, in order to prepare for this new construction, our brains are flooded with the chemicals and hormones that facilitate this stuctural growth. As a result of that chemical overload, our existing neurons/synapses are somewhat less accessible (like a highway with all but one lane closed) and we often experience things like aphasia and general forgetfulness and distractedness. The book is fascinating, and is also quite encouraging to read while you're pregnant and everybody is acting like gestatingmakes you into some kind of imbecile.
ReplyDelete