Is “pregnancy brain” a myth?
It’s a running joke among many pregnant women, their partners and friends that you get “mommy brain” while pregnant and shortly after, becoming absent-minded and a little bit of a duIt’s a running joke among many pregnant women, their partners and friends that you get “mommy brain” while pregnant and shortly after, becoming absent-minded and a little bit of a dunce during pregnancy. Certainly, there are probably hundreds if not thousands of women out there who can attest to this suggestion as FACT.
The answer depends on who you ask. In 2014, a New York Magazine‘s “Science of Us” stated it was a myth that was being debunked.
“[T]he idea that it’s a purely negative effect is a myth that’s in the process of being debunked,” the NYMag authors noted. “Any pregnancy-related impairments are likely a side effect of what ultimatelys is a maternal neuro-upgrade that boosts women’s ability to care for their vulnerable offspring.”
The news was welcome because it meant the demise of the baby-brain, considered a “simplistic, one-sided concept that almost certainly encourages prejudice against women.”
Not so fast.
But a 2011 study said something different.
Researchers Jessica Henry and BarbaraSherwin publishedban article in Behavioral Neuroscience which reports that women in late pregnancy and soon after birth had significantly LOWER scores than a control group on a variety of tasks. The science says our stupidness may have to do with changes in cortisol and estradiol levels.
As you probably know by now, studies are frequent and differ so take all info you get with a grain of salt.
Personally, we think it is a myth.