Many women say that after giving birth to a child, they have lost everything, memory loss, unresponsiveness and often forget what they want to do in the next second, as if the brain deserted, the quality of life has also deteriorated, so there is a "one pregnancy stupid three years" saying.
And this subjective judgment seems to have been "confirmed" by the scientific community, the British "Nature Neuroscience" published a paper, the research team conducted a study of first-time mothers, found that pregnancy can lead to structural changes in the brain within at least two years. These changes occur in areas related to social cognition, as well as areas where mothers respond to images of their babies. Due to the sharp rise in hormone levels, pregnancy does bring about drastic psychological and physiological changes, which seems to be a hammer on the "one pregnancy for three years" statement?
However, the truth is that the shrinking gray matter not only does not make the mothers stupid, but gives them more powerful abilities!
"Pregnant stupid" is not terrible, the brain has changed, but the IQ has not become lower
In the study, the researchers recruited a group of volunteers with first-time pregnancy intentions and spent more than 5 years following the study, taking magnetic resonance imaging scans before and after their pregnancy.
As a result, the researchers clearly found that pregnant women had a significant reduction in the "gray matter volume" of some brain areas, and even the scanned images alone could determine whether the volunteer was pregnant.
They divided pregnant women into two groups: natural conception group and artificial assisted conception group, and after comparison, they found that whether it was artificial conception or natural conception, similar structural changes occurred in the brain.
Scans from the non-pregnant group showed no similar changes in their brain structure.
Pregnant women's brains have changed precisely in areas related to social cognition, so does the smaller gray matter volume mean "becoming stupid"?
The researchers found no significant change in the volunteers' performance in the behavioral tests before and after pregnancy, including "verbal memory, working memory" were not affected, so the claim that "there is a scientific basis for a silly three years of pregnancy" is untenable.
So why do many mothers still feel that their memory has "really deteriorated after pregnancy"?
Cao Zeyi, vice dean of the School of Medicine of Tsinghua University, analyzed that this is related to the fact that pregnant women will inevitably be more nervous than usual during pregnancy. For example, worrying about whether the child will be unhealthy, whether it can give birth smoothly, etc.; after the birth of the child, especially in the first two years, the mother should become a generalist, feeding, changing diapers, coaxing sleep, etc., so that the mother's "attention" is completely transferred to the child, and other trivial matters become no longer important, so it is natural to forget easily.
Change is to be a better mom
The study found that the area of gray matter reduction in the brain of pregnant women is mainly distributed near the anterior and posterior midlines of the brain and the temporal lobes on both sides, which is closely related to the "social cognitive ability" of humans.
In addition, the degree of change can also predict the degree of "attachment" of the mother to the child. Changes in the volume of gray matter in the brain help to eliminate maternal hostility towards newborns, making it easier for mothers to develop attachment relationships with their babies and allowing women to adapt to their new roles more quickly. The more significant the reduction in gray matter volume, the closer the mother and baby are.
Think about it, most of the children were crumpled when they were just born, ugly, but no mother will dislike their own baby ugly, but feel that TA is particularly cute, especially want to hug TA, this is likely to be the brain structure change to add a layer of "filter" to your eyes, wait a few years later to see the child's birth photos, only to be surprised: the original was so "ugly", how did not feel it at that time?
The researchers reasoned that women's brains underwent further functional specialization during pregnancy, and their social cognitive abilities were improved, allowing them to better understand the "needs of the baby" and become more sensitive to possible dangers. And all of this can help women become better mothers.
So, rather than being pregnant for three years, pregnancy makes moms' brains stronger.
How New Moms Overcome "Pregnancy Stupidity"
"Pregnant stupid" is not really stupid, but mothers are "too tired", working day and night to take care of their children, long-term lack of sleep, and who will be confused and forgetful. But this situation will gradually improve as the baby grows up day by day, how to spend the "three years of pregnancy", Xiaohai will give you a few tricks.
1. Before and after giving birth, develop the habit of taking a nap at any time to give the brain a chance to rest.
2. Use memos or post-it notes to write down the things you have to do in a day to effectively cope with forgetfulness.
3, often supplies are placed in a fixed position, easy to find, but also to avoid losing three or four.
4. Ingest enough water and iron-rich foods to allow the blood to deliver more oxygen to the brain.
5, daily moderate exercise, can make the brain more flexible.
All species on Earth have evolved to benefit from harm, and humans are certainly no exception.
In order to adapt to the role of "mother" faster and better, the female brain begins to undergo structural changes after pregnancy, which gives each mother a "super language ability", building a "sharp heart" bridge between the mother and the baby, so that the mother can read the baby's needs more accurately.
Therefore, mothers who have mastered this new skill can straighten up and tell others that there is no such thing as "pregnancy stupidity", everything is for the sake of the child!