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‘Mommy brain’ doesn’t capture

how the brain transforms
during pregnancy
Pregnancy quickly reorganizes the brain to respond to infants, researchers have
found

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The maternal brain doesn’t get the credit it deserves for the new skills it quickly learns in order to care for a new baby, neuroscientists argue.
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By Aimee Cunningham
FEBRUARY 27, 2023 AT 7:00 AM

Pregnancy shrinks parts of the brain. That sounds bad. Throw in the forgetfulness
and fogginess, or “momnesia,” that many moms report, and what’s left is the
notion that for the brain, the transition to motherhood is a net loss.

“I see it on social media all the time,” says neuroscientist and therapist Jodi
Pawluski of the University of Rennes in France. “Your brain shrunk. This is why
[you] forget everything.”

But that’s just not true, Pawluski says. The perception that the maternal brain is
dysfunctional has gone on long enough: It’s time to “start giving the maternal
brain the credit it deserves,” Pawluski and her colleagues write February 6 in in
JAMA Neurology.

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Pregnancy does kick-start structural changes in the brain, including a loss of gray
matter. But the loss isn’t automatically a bad thing — reductions can reflect a
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fine-tuning process that makes the brain more efficient (SN: 3/18/22).

During the transition to motherhood, the brain reorganizes its connections,

strengthening those that are useful and letting go of those that aren’t, Pawluski
says. This reorganization prepares the brain “to learn rapidly to keep a baby alive,”
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In a 2016 study, for example, researchers reported brain changes, including
reductions, that appear to foster attachment to a new baby (SN: 12/19/16). Other
work by this team found pregnancy-triggered decreases in the volume of the
ventral striatum, a region involved in motivation and reward. Those reductions in
mothers’ brains were associated with a heightened responsiveness toward their
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babies, the team reported in Psychoneuroendocrinology in 2020. Emily Jacobs wants to know
how sex hormones sculpt the
brain
Still, many pregnant and postpartum women do report memory loss. Studies By Cassie Martin • September 29,
2022
haven’t found large differences when testing memory for new moms compared
with nonmothers, Pawluski says, but more research is needed to understand the
mental load of parenthood — the impact of endless tasks and distractions.

A possible explanation for “momnesia” or “mommy brain” is that new mothers

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turn their attention toward baby and away from other things. Indeed, pregnant
Microcephaly, other birth
women, in contrast to never-pregnant women, demonstrated a boost in learning defects are on the rise since
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about baby-related objects as compared with adult-related items, researchers By Laurel Hamers • March 2, 2017
reported in Memory in 2022. Pregnant women also fared better with recalling
relationships between objects and locations.

The changes in the maternal brain are akin to those seen during adolescence. A
study of first-time mothers and female adolescents found that the reductions in
volume in the maternal brain matched those seen in the teens, researchers
reported in Human Brain Mapping in 2019. “We accept adolescence as being a
time of transition and a lot of neuroplasticity,” or the brain’s ability to change,
Pawluski says. The shift to motherhood is just as impactful on the brain, she says.

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Giving the maternal brain its due for its incredible adaptations does not mean that
caregiving is a skill exclusive to those who give birth. While hormones trigger
brain modifications during pregnancy, nonbirthing parents’ brains change with
the experience of having a newborn. After the birth of their first child, new
fathers’ brains showed a reduction in gray matter, but childless men’s brains
didn’t, researchers reported in Cerebral Cortex in 2022.

Changing misperceptions about the brain during the transition to motherhood

“comes back to acknowledging the importance of caregiving,” Pawluski says, by
all parents. “The ability for your brain to actually learn to keep a baby alive is a big
deal.”

Questions or comments on this article? E-mail us

at feedback@sciencenews.org | Reprints FAQ

CITATIONS
C. McCormack, B.L. Callaghan and J.L. Pawluski. It’s time to rebrand “mommy brain.” JAMA Neurology. Published online
February 6, 2023. doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2022.5180.

M. Martínez-García et al. First-time fathers show longitudinal gray matter volume reductions: evidence from two
international samples. Cerebral Cortex. Published online September 7, 2022. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhac333.

B. Callaghan et al. Evidence for cognitive plasticity during pregnancy via enhanced learning and memory. Memory. Vol. 30,
May 2022, p. 519. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2021.2019280.

E. Hoekzema et al. Becoming a mother entails anatomical changes in the ventral striatum of the human brain that
facilitates its responsiveness to offspring cues. Psychoneuroendocrinology. Vol. 112, February 2020. doi:
10/1016/j.psyneuen.2019.104507.

S. Carmona et al. Pregnancy and adolescence entail similar neuroanatomical adaptations: a comparative analysis of
cerebral morphometric changes. Human Brain Mapping. Vol. 40, May, 2019, p. 2,143. doi: 10.1002/hbm.24513.

About Aimee Cunningham

Aimee Cunningham is the biomedical writer. She has a master’s degree in science
journalism from New York University.

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