The 'Baby Brain'..

[Bells]

Finally!

Someone has finally acknowledged what pregnant women have suspected for ages. No longer can women think themselves insane, when they forget even the most mundane things, while pregnant.

WOMEN who are convinced they become more forgetful during pregnancy are probably not imagining things.

An Australian study has found a woman's memory can be impaired for at least a year after giving birth - a condition dubbed "baby brain".

Researchers Julie Henry and Peter Rendell analysed the findings of 14 international studies on memory performance in pregnant women between 1990 and 2007.

The studies compared memory in 412 expectant women and 272 new mothers with 386 healthy non-pregnant women.

Mothers-to-be were significantly impaired on measures of memory that required extra effort, such as learning new phone numbers.

Link

No one yet knows what causes it. Lack of sleep during pregnancy is one possible cause. Or it could also be hormonal. The study found that pregnant women sometimes have memories comparable to 60 year old women.

Dr Henry, a psychology researcher at the University of NSW, likened the memory deficits to those found in healthy 60-year-olds when comparing them with a person 40 years younger.

Even remembering normal tasks and events can sometimes be an issue. I remember bursting into tears while pregnant with my first child and had gone to the hospital for a routine ultrasound and for the life of me, I could not remember how old I was when the doctor asked me my age. When speaking of the incident to other women who had children, they laughed at me and told me similar incidents had also occured to them and to not worry about it. Now I understand why my doctor always called me the day before each appointment as a 'reminder'.

In a separate study which is about to be published in the same journal, Dr Rendell, of the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, and Dr Henry found pregnant women performed worse in terms of prospective memory - such as remembering a doctor's appointment.

[draqon]

Bells...lets face it everything has effect on everything. Lack of sleep obviously...except will pregnant now sleep better because of this article but keep smoking? I mean I am sure the reason she does not sleep is because of tension/anxiety.

[Asguard]

Bells did they do a study of new fathers as well?

or sleeping pattens and memory?

I think its probably a combination of both but that would be the way to test it. As good new fathers get as little sleep as new mothers (especially if the kid is bottle feed, and you have twins, god i pitty my parents) and the memory loss was the same then you could make a fair assumption that its caused by sleep rather than hormones. If however its limited to mothers you could say fairly accuratly that its caused by hormones

[Bells]

While I was pregnant, my memory was terrible. I forgot anything and everything. I forgot how old I was, I forgot my husband's date of birth, my parent's birthday's, our phone numbers, etc. I noticed when we had the newborn at home and we were getting very little sleep, my husband's memory also became affected, althouth it was never as bad as mine was during pregnancy and those early months after the birth. Although his seemed to be short term memory, for example, he would be going to the store and I would ask him to buy bread and he would return having forgotten to buy it.

I do think that for women, it is probably a combination of fatigue and hormones. Especially during the later stages of pregnancy. But from my own personal experience and from what I know of other women who have had children, the memory loss started from the first trimester and became worse as the pregnancy progressed. Half the time I never knew what day it was. Was horrible really. And also humiliating in a lot of ways.

[Asguard]

short term memory problems are REALLY comon with sleep depreavation. Not sure about long term memory though

Oh and bells i NEVER know what the day OR date is

Seriously do you mind if we explore your personal experiance a little deeper

For instance you said that you had memory problems in the first trimester, how were you sleeping at that point? and how were you feeling?

For instance one other cause of memory problems is a drop in seritonin caused by depression (which is why my memory always sucks) so if you were suffering depression that could also have been a cause sperate from the increase in estrogen

[Bells]

short term memory problems are REALLY comon with sleep depreavation. Not sure about long term memory though

Oh and bells i NEVER know what the day OR date is

Seriously do you mind if we explore your personal experiance a little deeper

For instance you said that you had memory problems in the first trimester, how were you sleeping at that point? and how were you feeling?

For instance one other cause of memory problems is a drop in seritonin caused by depression (which is why my memory always sucks) so if you were suffering depression that could also have been a cause sperate from the increase in estrogen

I was under a lot of stress, since I had a lot of problems during the first trimester of my first pregnancy.. constantly having to rush to the hospital fearing a miscarriage, etc. But I did sleep. God all I did was sleep and wanted to keep on sleeping. I used to take naps at work during my lunch breaks because I felt tired all the time. My memory problems started from about the 8th week of the pregnancy and gradually became worse. I am surprised I did not become a blathering idiot at the end.. At first I put it down to stress but then began to realise it was not stress. So I began to carry around a little notebook and I wrote everything down in it, just in case I forgot something important.

I was not suffering from depression. Feeling stressed, yes. But depression? No. I actually found the memory loss to be a hugely stressful actually. And that added to the stress of it all.. lol..

But the same happened during my second pregnancy. No scares at the start like with the first pregnancy.. that came later on. I was tired, but not as stressed and again, by the 8th week, my memory just started to turn to mush.

[Asguard]

then it definitly sounds like it could have been hormonal rather than sleep or seritonin. Out of shear interest did it coincide with morning sickness?

[Bells]

Oh no. That started before the 8th week. When I was pregnant with my first, I originally thought I had a bad flu. Constant nausea, joint aches and pains, stomach cramps, really bad headaches. I actually went to the doctor thinking I had the flu. Then she suggested a pregnancy test.. something I laughed at since I supposedly could not have children. She persisted, I did it, then told her it was wrong and to do it again.. lol not one of my finest moments. I had the same symptoms with my second pregnancy, but this time I expected it and knew what it was. With my second pregnancy, I knew very early because the symptoms were the same as with the first pregnancy.