Is there really such a thing as "pregnancy brain"?

BOSTON - There's more scientific proof that there is such a thing as "pregnancy brain."

Every year, millions of pregnant women experience profound physical and hormonal changes, but what specifically happens to their brains? A team at University of California Santa Barbara performed 26 MRI scans on the brain of one neuroscientist before she got pregnant until two years after delivery. They found a significant reduction in gray matter volume, largely responsible for thinking, memory, and emotion.

That may sound bad, but experts say think of it more like pruning or prepping and fine-tuning the brain for more specialized tasks, which happens to children during puberty as well. Larger studies will look at the brains of hundreds of women pre- and post-pregnancy which may provide answers as to why some women develop pregnancy-related conditions like postpartum depression.

In:
• Health
• Women's Health
• Pregnancy

Mallika Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.

Twitter Facebook