When I first found out I was pregnant, my friends who were seasoned mothers warned me about baby brain. They told me that it starts when you are pregnant, you will start to forget things easily and feel like your brain doesn’t work just right.
Then they also warned me not to think my brain was coming back anytime soon. It gets worse when you have kids. I laughed and nodded my head, while reassuring myself that it was just a silly old wives tale. I’ve always had all my marbles, no sense in worrying about losing them now!
Then when I was about eight months into my pregnancy, I spent the day shopping downtown by myself. I browsed the stores and boutiques for a bit and it wasn’t until a half hour later it occurred to me that I couldn’t find my car keys. Worried that I had locked them in the car, I went back to where I parked and got a pretty big surprise…
I had left my car, fully running, with keys still in the ignition.
I couldn’t believe it! How could I have done that? Sure, I could see that maybe leaving my keys in the car would be normal but to leave it completely running with the keys still in the ignition? This was completely out of character for me and though I was relieved that no one stole my car, I was getting worried that those ladies had been right.
As my little ones were each born, I found that it felt like my forgetfulness was getting worse. I could forget things within seconds. I could pull up a web browser and within a nano second completely forget what I wanted to look up. What was happening to my brain?! When will I ever get it back?
So I did my research, looking to find something that would help me feel better and give me hope that I was not showing signs of early dementia. The truth I found was that while you are pregnant, your hormones are high and can affect all kinds of neurons in your brain. Mix this with lack of sleep, having lots of other important things on your mind – such as preparing for a baby – of course some things may fall through the holes.
This could happen to anyone – baby or not.
And when the baby is born, your are constantly multitasking working on little to no sleep. It is a miracle that you remembered to even go to the bathroom that day! In time, baby brain will pass. You can only hope it’s before your little ones move out.
In my research, I did find that becoming a mum does in fact make you smarter. There was a study at Yale that showed motherhood often restructures the brain making it better at processing capabilities. The more you dot on your kids, the smarter you become! This has a lot to do with giving you the ability to take care of your precious babies. Though you may seem forgetful it’s only because your are dedicating more of your mental resources to loving and providing for your kids.
Being a mother has made us become better multitaskers, we have better response to read situations and environments so to spot any possible threats on our family.
All of these benefits are ones that we get to enjoy long after our little ones have grown up! Now, where are my car keys……
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