BABY LOVE: Inside mummy brain

You are pregnant, and like many other women before you, you are suffering nausea and fatigue in the first trimester, a glowing bump in the second trimester, a new wave of fatigue and anxiety in the third trimester then the pains of childbirth.

You have your baby. She’s healthy. And she’s a gorgeous pea. Amen to that. She’s now the reason, the sole agenda to your days. You nurture her as best as you know how. You have her under your wing for the next, what, 18 years? Probably more, hopefully less.

YOU ARE A MOTHER NOW

And what most mothers – as those who spoke to the Saturday Magazine – don’t know is that a certain pregnancy bug has bit them in the midst of this motherhood mayhem.

This bug is the pregnancy brain. Or the mummy brain. Suddenly, you are forgetful. You lose your ability to think. You can’t concentrate. You are easily distracted. You are disinterested in the things that once excited you. You are inattentive.

Science tells us that the brain of the woman will function differently during and after pregnancy. Researchers are split in explaining why it is so: some say that it is hormonal changes, lethargy and insufficient rest.

Your brain doesn’t have enough energy to function as it used to so it directs what it has to nurturing and caring for your baby. Others say that the anxiety of what is happening overwhelms you – you are smack in the middle of this very emotional and physical transition so all else blurs into oblivion. Little is of importance except your baby.

Other studies say that the size of your brain decreases during the third trimester and plumps back after you’ve delivered.

The brain is learning to process facial emotions differently, a new function you will use to bond with your baby after birth. Regular functions are ‘suspended’.

AT WORK

New mums and mums-to-be take their pregnancy brain to work and it’s frustrating for her and those she works with. She’s unfocussed in her duties, ineffective, unreliable. Uncommitted to her work. She comes across as insubordinate and slackful. She will miss deadlines and forget to attend some meetings. She will not contribute to the ones she remembers to attend.

She will usually be late. She will be frustrated for a time about this, but nothing about them will scare her. It won’t bother her that she’s the slowest member of the team.

Janet, 32, a sales manager and a mother of a 10-month-old says, “Do you know those people in your team who just seem to drag their feet all day and don’t think or respond to things as quickly as you’d like them to? The ones who make you want to pull your hair out?

My pregnancy brain made me one of those people. It was all new to me.”

“I doubt I did any real work in the time I was pregnant,” says Rita, 27, a consultant. Her baby is three months old. “There were weeks where I did nothing all day except Google everything pregnancy and babies.”

How long does it take for the mum’s pregnant brain to return to her old sharp one? Most mothers say that theirs lasted for one to two years since when they first got pregnant.

Others say that it took as long as five years. One single mum, 25, said she didn’t have the luxury to indulge her pregnancy brain. She snapped back three months after she delivered: “I needed to make money.”

The consequences of the pregnancy brain are inescapable. What you can do is manage it itself. We collected several tips from mums, which worked for them. See our sidebar.