We know that pregnancy changes the body, but did you know that the constant and evolving challenges of parenthood change the structure of mothers’ and fathers’ brains?
And, while the biological impacts of pregnancy and birth normally disappear over time, parenthood is for life. So, you’re in the thick of it now, but your brain actually changes to prepare you for motherhood in some amazing ways and both you and your partner can expect benefits from this intense and demanding time, later in life.
Pregnancy brain: Changes for women
Does “pregnancy brain” really exist?
Yes, during pregnancy, but not so much after birth. 80% of women report impaired memory, reduced concentration, and absentmindedness in pregnancy and early motherhood.
Yet, while 4 in 5 women say that they feel forgetful and can’t concentrate, this is objectively seen in the third trimester, but not after birth. This means that women feel a decrease in cognitive function, but their objective performance has actually not declined once the baby is here.
The absentmindedness that you felt during pregnancy is real, but after birth your brain is already recovering. So, give yourself a break! You’re doing better than you think.
Your brain restructures in 3 ways to help you care for baby
One
Memory
Research has also gone beyond tests of memory recall or self-reported concentration, to study actual structural changes in the brain. Amazingly, while there is a general decline in memory in the third trimester, there is also an increase in memory related to infant-information, showing that women’s brains are more tuned in to baby information at the expense of other information unrelated to motherhood.
Two
Emotional Intelligence
The gray matter also changes in the social cognition parts of your brain and improves your ability to read facial expressions and emotion. Your brain actually restructures to help you decipher and process your baby’s needs!
Three
Cognition
The brain consists of white matter and gray matter. Gray matter is responsible for sending information out to the body, and white matter receives sensory information from the body. During pregnancy, the hippocampus – a part of the brain involved in memory – loses gray matter, but this loss is recovered and gray matter actually increases postpartum. We don’t know if the structural changes lead to cognitive changes, i.e. maternal behavior, or if the cognitive demands of motherhood cause the structural changes, but research shows that both are happening.
From the Start
From birth to back to exercise, this course has everything you need with over 6 hours of learning and 9 postpartum specialists. You will learn about timelines for recovery, foods to help healing, remedies for your body and hair and more. You will enjoy sophrology and yoga nidra to improve your sleep and calm your nerves and you will have access to yoga and exercise classess to get you reconnected to your body and moving again.
Beyond the brain: sleep, mood and hormones
What about hormonal changes, lack of sleep, and changes in mood? All of these factors impact cognition, memory and brain function. How do we know that these factors are not responsible for the structural changes in the brain? We don’t. After birth lack of sleep, anxiety and postpartum depression are common and are associated with poor memory and cognitive impairments. Pregnancy is a hormonal roller coaster and hormones do impact memory, but, so far, research shows that the changing hormones are not related to the memory and cognition changes in pregnancy and postpartum.
Parenthood brain: changes for parents
Are the brain changes caused by pregnancy and birth or from parenthood itself? To answer this question we can compare the brains of new mothers and new fathers, or women who have given birth and women who have not given birth. The structural changes that we see in new mothers and not present in new fathers. This tells us that they are not related to the experience of becoming a parent, but rather to the physical changes of pregnancy and birth. These structural changes are so distinct that it is possible to look at an MRI scan of a woman’s brain and know if she has been pregnant or not.
Long-term protection for all parents
Parenthood, in and of itself, also causes long-term positive changes in the brain. As we know, parenthood offers new challenges everyday. And, this actually protects the brain in the long-term for both men and women. In the same way that challenges in general – social activity, higher education, or knowledge of foreign language – offer cognitive protection. Parents’ brains are more resilient to illness, aging, damage and cognitive decline later in life. And parents of 2 to 3 children experience the greatest effects, thanks to the juggling, relearning and adapting that comes with parenting multiple children.
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