Most times pregnancy brain is usually blamed for pregnant women’s forgetfulness. During my pregnancy period, oftentimes I would actually forget what I was going to say, then I’d ask my husband
“what was it I was going to say?” He in turn, will look at me as if I’ve lost my mind, “How in hell am I supposed to know what’s going on in your pregnancy brain?”
I was actually tempted to check out what pregnancy brain is and yes I found out some things.
During pregnancy, a lot of changes happen to her body, but the question is do all these changes actually affect the brain too?
And here are some answers to the crazy things that happens to a woman during pregnancy;
Morning sickness
During pregnancy, it is normal for pregnant women to experience morning sickness, and around 1% of pregnant women experience severe, prolonged morning sickness called hyperemesis gravidarum which leads to dehydration and weight loss, and may require medical attention.
After 18 weeks, most pregnant women stop experiencing morning sickness. And although the major cause of morning sickness is unknown, a popular theory suggests that morning sickness is the body’s reaction to the increase in the pregnancy hormone, human chorionic gonadotropic (hCG).
The study further showed that the level of hCG and the frequency of vomiting increases at the same time during pregnancy, although this doesn’t explain why morning sickness happens.
A recent theory suggests that vomiting during early pregnancy is beneficial, as it rids the body of such foods that can hinder the foetus’ development.
Vomiting is controlled by an area in the hindbrain called the area postrema. The area postrema lacks a blood-brain barrier, meaning it can detect toxins in the bloodstream and cerebrospinal fluid. Further study has shown that the area postrema has receptors for hCG, which may be the reasonable explanation for why it’s particularly sensitive during pregnancy.
Stronger sense of smell
One of the earliest signs of pregnancy is a heightened sense of smell. Most women’s sense of smell become stronger than usual when they are pregnant. During pregnancy, women are particularly sensitive to cooking foods, cigarette smoke, perfumes, spices, spoiled food, and burning tyre.
Women have a “disgust sensitivity” when they are pregnant and this motivates them to avoid any possible contaminants which can affect the developing foetus. Which may explain why pregnant women particularly hate the smell of cigarette smoke and spoiled food.
Forgetfulness During Pregnancy
Some women complain of forgetfulness during pregnancy and like other changes which occur during pregnancy, pregnancy hormones is the obvious culprit, although some women notice no mental changes during pregnancy. In all, the research on this topic is mixed.
A meta-analysis study in 2008 reported that compared to women who are not pregnant, pregnant women performed worse on some measures of memory. Pregnant women especially performed worse on working (short-term) memory and free recollecting tasks.
In all, hormones may or may not be the culprit causing memory deficits in pregnant women.
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