Scientists reject theory of ‘baby brain’ during pregnancy

February 3, 2010 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News, Pregnancy

Kate Winslet & Myleene Klass have both claimed to have had, "Baby Brain"

Scientists in Australia have rejected the theory of “baby brain”, the idea that women have memory lapses due to a pregnancy.

The idea that a woman who becomes pregnant suffers memory lapses has been cited as fact by many authors promoting self-help books for pregnant women. Those authors may want to reconsider.

New research out of Australia has found no link between a woman’s brain functions and pregnancy or motherhood.

Led by Dr. Helen Christensen of the Centre for Mental Health Research at Australian National University, the researchers focused on 1,214 women between the ages of 20 and 24. Those women were assessed in 1999 on their working memory, cognitive speed, and immediate and delayed recall. The team followed up with the women in 2003 and again in 2007.

They found that women who were pregnant during the assessments showed no decline in cognitive functions. Additionally, those women who had become mothers during the course of the study showed no cognitive losses.

In a statement by Dr. Christensen and her team, she said: “Not so long ago, pregnancy was ‘confinement’ and motherhood meant the end of career aspirations. Our results challenge the view that mothers are anything other than the intellectual peers of their contemporaries.”

“Women and their partners need to be less automatic in their willingness to attribute common memory lapses to a growing or new baby. And obstetricians, family doctors and midwives may need to use the findings from this study to promote the fact that ‘placenta brain’ is not inevitable.”

Dr. Christensen believes the idea that women lose cognitive functions during pregnancy is entirely psychological.

“Part of the problem is that pregnancy manuals tell women they are likely to experience memory and concentration problems, so women and their partners are primed to attribute any memory lapse to the ‘hard to miss’ physical sign of pregnancy,” she said.

The research, published in the February edition of the British Journal of Psychiatry, would appear to run contrary to past research that suggested brain size shrinks in pregnant women.

In January 2002, a study was published in the American Journal of Neuroradiology that found women’s brain volume shrunk by nearly four percent during pregnancy. However, it is speculated that the volume loss isn’t directly related to cognitive losses, but rather is a product of the brain creating new circuitry to allow the mother to better protect the child.