World

STUDY: Women Actually Do Become More Forgetful When They’re Pregnant

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Grace Carr Reporter
Font Size:

Women may actually become more forgetful and display lower cognitive abilities while they are pregnant than they otherwise normally would, a new study shows.

Professor Linda Byrne talks about a phenomenon known as “baby brain” in a Monday podcast published in the Medical Journal of Australia, explaining that pregnancy affects several cognitive areas of the brain. The podcast looks at a new study pulling data from 20 separate reports on the relationship between pregnancy and brain changes, assessing the cognitive abilities of 709 pregnant women and 521 non-pregnant women.

The study specifically explores how pregnancy affects memory and other functions of the brain as well as how length of pregnancy may affect those functions according to Medical Xpress, the medical research company that conducted the study.

Compared to those who were not pregnant, pregnant women performed worse on cognitive tasks including decision-making, attention span and planning according to the study’s results. These functions decreased to their lowest level during the third trimester of pregnancy. Researchers used various methods including digit lists tests to evaluate their subjects.

Pregnant women performed worse than non-pregnant women, however, their performances still fell within the normal range of cognitive ability.

A 2016 study also shows that pregnant women experience reductions in areas of the brain responsible for social information processing, and claims the phenomenon could actually be an adaptive mechanism that allows women to prepare for and adapt their brains to motherhood. The study also shows a loss in cognitive function of the hippocampus — responsible for memory function — fully returned to normal within two years of bearing a child.

Also WATCH:

Follow Grace on Twitter.

Freedom of Speech Isn’t Free
The Daily Caller News Foundation is working hard to balance out the biased American media. For as little as $3, you can help us. Make a one-time donation to support the quality, independent journalism of TheDCNF. We’re not dependent on commercial or political support and we do not accept any government funding.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tags : australia
Grace Carr