It’s official — "baby brain" is real.
A scientific study has proved what most women have always known — that pregnancy can upset the brain as well as the body.
The study, published recently in the Medical Journal of Australia, showed women in their last three months of pregnancy averaged significantly lower memory and "executive functioning" than other women.
Study author Associate Prof Linda Byrne, of Deakin University, said "baby brain" symptoms could include poor concentration and absent-mindedness, and up to 81% of women reported some effects.
"That seems to confirm a lot of what we hear anecdotally where women say they start forgetting things during pregnancy — they put the car keys in the fridge or miss appointments," she said.
But Dr Nikki Turner, of the University of Auckland’s Conectus child and maternal health research group, said pregnancy was only one of many things that affected people’s mental functioning.
"A lot of things in the environment affect our memory and our cognitive ability, such as having a cold, losing sleep or feeling stressed," she said.
The study analysed 20 previous "baby brain" studies published globally between 1986 and 2014. Although some of the studies did not find pregnancy had any significant effect, the new study found effects on the brain were significant when measured across the total of 709 pregnant women and 521 other women who were involved in all 20 studies put together.
The combined study found pregnant women in their third trimester performed well below the average for other women on memory tasks, and slightly below average on "executive functioning" which includes attention, planning, shifting between ideas, generating new responses, problem-solving and abstraction.
However, the studies found no significant effect on attention when it was measured separately.
New Zealand Maternal Fetal Medicine Network clinical director Emma Parry said she had memory problems herself when pregnant with her daughters, now aged 19 and 15.
"I had problems with words," she said.
"I’d be thinking about medical terms. I knew exactly what it was, I just couldn’t put my finger on it."
Once my children started sleeping through, that’s when I started to feel I just got my brain back.
"I don’t think it came right till my kids were 4 months old," Dr Parry said.
However, she continued delivering babies until she was 38 weeks pregnant and said the memory problems did not stop her doing a good job.
"I’m a big believer in lists. I used to have lots of lists everywhere," she said.
Dr Turner said the studies were based on averages and could not be used to draw any conclusions about an individual, such as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who is expecting her first baby in June.
"For some women there is some effect on aspects of your cognitive functioning. That does not mean it applies to all women, and it’s not a huge effect," she said.
"We have a huge amount of really high-functioning women out there who perform extremely well through all stages of pregnancy."
- Simon Collins
