“Momnesia” or “Mommy brain” fog is the idea that mothers are more forgetful and less attentive and new research shines some light on how it really affects us. Previous research has confirmed that it’s a real thing, but astudyjust out from Perdue University finds this forgetfulness has a lifespan and doesn’t last forever.
For the study researchers used a revised version of the Attention Network Test to compare reaction times among 60 U.S. moms, all of whom had a child who was at least one year old, and 70 non-mothers. And it turns out, the mamas performed equally as well or better compared with women who had never been pregnant or had children. It also showed moms had similar “alerting and orienting attention” and better executive control attention, compared to non-moms.
Valerie Tucker Miller, a PhD student at Perdue, explains that moms were not as distracted by outside items and that “it’s possible that maternity is related to improved, rather than diminished, attentiveness.” So why do we feel that brain fog during pregnancy and after having a newborn. Miller says we can blame that on the cascade or hormones and sleep deprivation that could be affecting attention and memory processes.
Source:Science Daily