Babies can cause 'momnesia'
Holly Massingill noticed the little slip-ups first.
The Austin mother, who once had an "almost photographic" memory, began to stumble over friends' names when introducing them. She would hop in her car and forget where she wanted to go.
Massingill began to wonder about her brain, though, after she asked her friend if she was looking forward to her upcoming wedding. The friend reminded her the wedding had taken place a month ago — and Massingill was there.
Momnesia — the mental fuzziness and memory lapses that set in shortly after childbirth — had struck again.
"At first I thought it was about being really tired," says Massingill, 36, whose son, Mace, is now 7 months old. "I can't even remember the things I've forgotten. I really think motherhood does something to your brain."
Scientists agree. While researchers say they can't explain all the ways motherhood affects a woman's memory, they agree there's a pattern.
Like Massingill, many moms feel mentally foggy in the days after delivery. And they notice that the details of labor and delivery, which are scenes one might expect to be seared into a woman's consciousness, began to slowly slip away.
Sadly, Massingill says, her son's first few weeks of life have become a blur.
Few parents enjoy feeling so scatterbrained, says neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain. And momnesia can be dangerous, such as when moms forget to fasten the straps in an infant's car seat. Yet momnesia may give modern mothers an evolutionary advantage, Brizendine says.
"It turns you into someone who serves that little infant, to keep it alive no matter what," says Brizendine, founder of the Women's and Teen Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic at the University of California in San Francisco. "Other parts of your brain that are usually on high alert are sort of taken offline."
Women may be reluctant to talk about their memory problems for fear of being judged poorly at work, especially because returning to a demanding job puts even more stress on the brain, Brizendine says.
But women don't get dumber after childbirth. Instead, like sleep-deprived medical residents who learn on the job, their brains are getting a workout. "You are learning a lot," she says. "Once your mommy brain gets readjusted, you get more efficient, and you become smarter and learn things faster, but it won't happen all at once."
Mothers' priorities often change dramatically while caring for a baby. They need to be "hyper vigilant" about their infants, who may develop symptoms of illness that are apparent only to those who have scrutinized their every coo and cry, Brizendine says. "You're on the mother beat all the time. It requires certain parts of your brain to work hyper, hyper, hyper well. But it requires other parts of your brain to play second fiddle."
Hypervigilance in other areas
The cost of that vigilance can be a little ditziness, and that is a price many moms are willing to pay.
Amy Prather of Nampa, Idaho, for example, occasionally leaves wet laundry in the washing machine or forgets to return phone calls. But she also has learned to spot subtle signs of trouble in her 2½-year-old daughter, Faith, including a dangerous bowel obstruction that doctors initially dismissed as colic.
Elizabeth Singleton of Gig Harbor, Wash., has learned to react quickly when her 17-month-old daughter, Kiersten, is choking, partly because she has had so much practice. She estimates she has fished objects out of her baby's throat at least 20 times.
Yet she burned her favorite teapot by leaving it on the stove, and she still occasionally stores milk in the cupboard rather than the fridge, a mistake she typically discovers after the milk has spoiled.
When it comes to the pain of childbirth, a little amnesia is a good thing. The brain typically softens or erases memories of traumatic events to permit people to continue functioning.
Women whose memories of childbirth remain too vivid may suffer post-traumatic flashbacks, Brizendine says. "You remember the pain was really bad, but you can't get into that space," she says.
If women's memories of labor and delivery didn't fade, "we'd never have sex again," says Sharon Phelan, an obstetrician and gynecologist with the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.
Women's plummeting estrogen levels, which lurch from "incredibly high" in late pregnancy to "virtually non-existent" after delivery, can make it hard to focus. While estrogen plays a key role in fertility, it also acts as a neurotransmitter, sending signals in the brain.
Breast-feeding can prolong the mental haze, Brizendine says, by circulating hormones that help mothers relax and promote a "mellow, mildly unfocused" feeling. Massingill says she has been feeling slightly sharper since she stopped nursing her son a few weeks ago.
USA Today
