Mom Brain Isn't Exactly What You Think
Psychologists Bridget Freihart, Ph.D. & Maytal Eyal, Ph.D. are here to educate, empower and share the true gifts of mom brain.
In collaboration with Gather, we recently asked the 4th Trimester Wellness audience if their confidence has been impacted by “Mom Brain,” and the answer was far from surprising.
A new mom loads up her car, en route to her daughter’s 6-month pediatrician check-up. She gets the baby in the car seat, packs up the diaper bag, and finally sits down behind the wheel. Before starting the engine, she finds herself making a rather unexpected internet search: “is the gas pedal on the left or the right”?
We’re Bridget and Maytal, two psychologists who specialize in women’s health, and the founders of Gather. Over the years, we’ve heard dozens of clients reflect on “mom brain,” or postpartum challenges with verbal recall and mental clarity. We’ve helped new moms process grief related to these changes and sat with questions like, “who even am I if my brain is fundamentally different now?” Transparently, these questions are deeply personal; one of us was the mom furiously googling the location of her gas pedal, muscle memory suddenly failing her.
What we’ve learned over the years is that the experience of “mom brain” is not imagined, nor is it incidental. It’s not exclusively caused by sleep deprivation or postpartum mood disturbances or lack of adult social contact. Instead, “mom brain” is brought about by significant neurological shifts—most notably in patterns of gray matter loss—that may actually facilitate the transition to parenthood.
Research suggests that postpartum deficits in some areas of brain function pave the way for dramatic upswings in other cognitive abilities. You might struggle to find the word for “refrigerator” and ramble on for five minutes about the machine that keeps food cold, while also finding yourself far more attuned to the emotions of those around you. You may struggle in conversations that would have previously felt effortless, while also learning about your child’s ever-changing patterns with relative ease.
These brain changes ostensibly occur for a helpful reason–to help us recognize and meet our children’s needs–but the experience doesn’t always feel helpful. For many of us who have spent years forming our identity around the way we function in the world, sudden shifts in functioning can lead to real questions about how we’ll perform professionally and socially moving forward, about whether we’ll be viewed as competent, about our very worth in this results-oriented society.
We talk a lot about these losses, as we should; the transition to motherhood inevitably leads to grieving the people we once were and the lives we once led. What we talk about less frequently is how “mom brain” may unlock gifts that catapult us towards growth, even as they move us further away from our former selves.
Your brain is more neuroplastic during postpartum than at any point in your adult life. Brain plasticity reflects a physiological capacity for change, for pruning old connections to make space for new ones. And with that in mind, “mom brain” may not signify decline at all; in fact, it may actually signal neurological evolution. Never before in your adult life have you been so capable of reorganization, growth, and transformation.
Across the good and the bad moments, few of us know what to expect during the radical transition to parenthood. In fact, 88% of new moms report feeling unprepared for postpartum. When we don’t understand what’s happening to our brains and bodies, change can feel threatening, even all-consuming. We may have a hard time noticing the joy that exists in addition to the pain. We may struggle to recognize the unique gifts of postpartum, including this unprecedented biological capacity to reimagine our lives.
We need to do better when it comes to preparing new parents for the postpartum period. New and expecting moms deserve to understand the complexities of mom brain, to anticipate the trajectory of their changing hormones, to be armed with concrete skills for navigating shifts in emotional health.
That’s why we’ve created the essential postpartum masterclass, the one we wished would have existed throughout the mental fog and sleepless nights. Together with experts like Emily Oster, Sara Reardon, and Uma Naidoo, we’ll teach you what to expect during your first year of parenting, give you practical skills to improve physical and emotional health, and help you more effectively care for your infant. We’ll also invite you into an inclusive community of new and expecting parents because, in addition to information, what moms need above all else is support.
You were never meant to do this alone. Join us as we reimagine postpartum and take 20% our course with discount code POSTPARTUMLIFE20.
You can find Bridget and Maytal on Instagram here: Gather.Health and their website here.
It has been such a pleasure collaborating with these lovely ladies, thank you to them for sharing such thoughtful information. I hope you have a great week and enjoy the warming weather. My sinuses aren’t totally prepared, but we’re working on it.
xoxo,
Erin