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Bena Blakeslee, a mother of two in Westchester, N.Y., remembers her brush with "pregnancy brain."
At an airport while pregnant, she frantically paced a parking lot, searching for her Jeep. After an hour, she called her husband to tell him that their car had been stolen. But then she realized that she had just gone to the wrong parking lot.
That wasn't her only memory glitch. "I also went to the wrong airport twice on the same trip, and another time, I was sitting at the wrong gate and completely missed my flight," Blakeslee says.
Many pregnant women and mothers can relate. Those bouts of forgetfulness go by many names, including:
pregnancy brain
mommy brain
pregnancy amnesia
momnesia
But a recent study questions whether pregnancy brain exists. Who is right -- the moms or the researchers? And how can you handle fuzzy memory during pregnancy? Here are answers.
Pregnancy Brain Is Real
"If you read pregnancy manuals and listen to pregnant mothers – yes, there is such a thing as pregnancy brain or momnesia, and there is also evidence from research showing deficits in memory," says Helen Christensen, PhD, of The Australian National University.
But "the evidence from our study shows that the capacity of the brain is unaltered in pregnancy," Christensen tells WebMD in an email.
That is, a pregnant woman's brain is unchanged, though she may not be as razor sharp as she once was.
Reasons for Pregnancy Brain
Blakeslee's forgetfulness is understandable. Like many moms, her life swirls like a tornado. She constantly handles the needs and wants of her two young kids, a torrent of other household tasks and chores -- and she rarely, if ever, gets a good night's sleep.
Under these circumstances, it is 100% normal to have memory lapses or be forgetful, Christenson says.
Jane Martin, assistant professor of psychiatry and director of the Neuropsychological Testing and Evaluation Center at New York's Mount Sinai Medical Center, agrees.
"When you are not getting enough sleep and are multitasking, nobody's memory is good," Martin says. "You are not cognitively sharp when you haven't slept well."
There may also be an evolutionary aspect to pregnancy brain, Moore says. "It has been postulated that from an evolutionary standpoint this memory impairment may be helpful so that women will forget about other stuff and focus on caring for the child."
Put another way: Having pregnancy (and babyhood) on the brain can result in pregnancy brain. Many pregnant women and new moms spend a lot of time thinking about the changes that having a baby will bring or taking care of their newborn and as a result, their short-term memory may suffer.
Pregnancy brain "should serve as your first tip-off that when you are preparing to have a baby, you need to simplify other areas of your life because life is about to get a lot more complicated," Moore says.
"It can also be an important reminder to take prenatal vitamins as nutritional deficiencies may play a role in pregnancy brain," she says.
Momnesiacs Anonymous
When pregnancy brain continues after childbirth (and it often does), sleep deprivation is clearly a contributing factor. "Women accumulate up to 700 hours of sleep debt in the first year after having a baby, and that causes the brain not to be at its best for things other than caring for the baby," says Brizendine.
Robin, a mother of two in New Rochelle, N.Y., asked that her last name be withheld because she finds her pregnancy brain problems to be embarrassing. "I forget everything now," she says. "I get in the shower and after 10 minutes, I forget if I washed my hair or not and I only shave one leg sometimes. I first noticed it during my second pregnancy and it has gotten worse. It definitely may be related to sleep deprivation and the constant demands of motherhood, but I also fear that it could be early-onset Alzheimer's."
Fear not, says Brizendine. "This type of memory loss or mental slippage is totally normal and not likely to be a sign of anything more serious than sleep deprivation."
Nipping Pregnancy Brain in the Bud
Geeta Sharma, MD, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, hears about pregnancy brain from patients all the time. "Most patients comment, 'I have to write my questions down or I will forget,' and then mention that they are more forgetful in general," she says.
Writing it down always helpful, she says, whether it's a grocery list or a list of questions to ask your obstetrician.
"Make lists, use a day planner, and keep your sense of humor," adds Moore.
Getting more sleep (while not always easy for new parents) can also help improve short-term memory. "I tell one parent to wear ear plugs at night and sleep wherever they don't hear the baby," says Brizendine. "Most moms need more deep sleep and within a week of getting better sleep, some of this momnesia stuff goes away."
While momnesia is usually not a cause for concern, not all memory lapses are benign, Brizendine says. "If your memory problems are getting in the way of taking safety precautions or if you find yourself doing things like forgetting to put your child in the car seat, worry. Otherwise, it's normal," she says. In general, pregnancy brain is "not something that makes women dangerous."