Women really do have ‘baby brain’ when they become pregnant

‘Baby brain’ is a real thing—women’s brains do change during pregnancy.

Cortical gray matter—the wrinkly outer part of the brain—decreases as hormone levels rise when a woman becomes pregnant, researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara have discovered.

The loss isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the researchers say, and it could indicate a fine tuning of brain circuits.  And white matter, which is located deeper in the brain and helps different areas of the brain communicate, increases.

“The maternal brain undergoes a choreographed change across gestation,” said Emily Jacobs, one of the researchers.

Her research team scanned the brain of a first-time mother every few weeks, beginning before she became pregnant, and for two years after birth.

The gray matter loss persisted over the two years, but the white matter increase peaked in the second trimester before returning to pre-pregnancy levels.

The brain changes could explain postpartum depression, which affects 20 percent of women after birth, the researchers say.

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