Aishwarya Iyer
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Written By: Aishwarya Iyer | Updated : August 31, 2018 11:45 AM IST
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Pregnancy leads to remarkable changes in a woman's body. In addition to physical changes in her body, there are psychological changes as well. Many women have, time and again complained of a phenomenon called the 'pregnancy brain'. This is frequent forgetfulness, inattention, mental fogginess and a decline in the cognitive abilities during their pregnancy.
What is pregnancy brain?
Forgotten keys, missed visits and skipping meals are just few examples of forgetfulness that this pregnancy brain marks. It is, explained as a period marked by massive changes in the body- including the dramatic hormonal shifts. Though very less research has been done regarding this topic, it is important to understand that expectant mothers have various emotional, physical as well as psychological changes.
Brain Matters: Changes during pregnancy
While not every scientific study believes that pregnancy is a real phenomenon, there is no denying that there are various impacts on the brain caused by pregnancy. The reasons for this is simple- hormonal shifts, stress and sleep deprivation.
1) Short-term memory: Many women, in their pregnancy often report days while they have either forgotten dates, names or say simple things such as having medicines etc. A 2007 meta-analysis looked at 14 different studies and discovered that pregnant women experienced significant impairments on certain measures of memory, but not all.
2) Changes in grey matter: The study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience in the year 2016, suggested that hormonal changes during pregnancy reduced the grey matter from the front and temporal part of the brain. These are the areas related to various cognitive functions and control social behaviours. This is not necessarily the worst happening to you. But the good news is greater the grey matter loss more is the attachment induced towards the infant, claims the study. So, mothers who have significant reduction of grey matter during pregnancy experience fewer negative emotions towards the baby later.
3) Recognition memory: Though pregnancy does decline short term memory, it doesn't necessarily affect your recognition memory, said a 2009 study.
