Pregnancy is not to blame for memory lapses in pregnant women, researchers at the Australian National University have found.

The researchers recruited 1241 women aged between 20 and 24 who were not yet mothers, testing them in four areas of cognitive functioning: cognitive speed, working memory, and delayed and immediate recall.

When they tested the same women in two follow-up assessments at four-year intervals, they found no significant changes in cognitive functioning in the women who were pregnant during the follow-up assessments as compared to those who were not. They also found no significant differences between the women who had become mothers and those who had not.

The researchers concluded that pregnancy and motherhood are not associated with cognitive deterioration, contradicting previous research findings.

Lead researcher Professor Helen Christensen said that women are primed by pregnancy manuals to look out for signs of ‘baby brain’ and so attribute any lapses in memory or concentration to pregnancy or to having a new baby, but other causes could be anxiety or sleep deprivation.

For more information, see: http://news.anu.edu.au/?p=1923