So-called “baby brain” has long defined women’s experiences of early motherhood, but a new study finds no evidence it exists in new parents at all.
The research from Monash University is the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, finding no evidence of underlying problems with cognition that result from becoming a parent.
For a long time, it’s been thought that pregnancy and early parenthood impair memory and thinking skills, particularly for women in the early days of parenthood. Much of this thinking came from a study published in 1997 titled Pregnant Women Get That Shrinking Feeling, that was widely misreported.
Instead, the new study published this week has found that both mothers and fathers performed at the same level as non-parents across all cognitive measures.
Published in the journal Cortex, the study was led by Navyaan Siddiqui and Dr Kelsey Perrykkad from the Cognitive Neuroimaging Lab at Monash University’s Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health. Researchers assessed 150 birth-giving mothers and 150 non-birth-giving fathers, comparing them with non-parent control groups across a broad range of cognitive measures.
The findings held steady regardless of how recently participants had become parents. Even up to two years postpartum, there was no evidence that the age of a baby had any impact on parents’ cognitive performance.
Researcher Navyaan Siddiqui said that before the study, they expected that mothers and fathers would show subjective and objective reduction in cognition compared to non-parents.
“We expected that there would be little to no difference between the new mums and dads on account of their shared environment post birth and we also expected that cognition would improve in parents with increased time postpartum,” he explained.
While there was no evidence of “baby brain”, researchers did find a gender bias, where male non-fathers self-reported better subjective memory than all other groups.
According to Siddiqui, “this self-promotion bias appeared to be lost in fathers, driven by lack of sleep”.
Parents may feel cognitively overwhelmed but it’s not reflected in testing
The study suggests that while new parents, especially mothers, may feel cognitively overwhelmed, these experiences are not reflected in objective cognition testing.
Importantly, the researchers emphasised that the absence of measurable cognitive decline for parents does not mean their experiences should be dismissed.
“While there is evidence of subtle decrements in cognition during pregnancy, the evidence is inconsistent about the presence of an objective measurable decline in cognitive function during the postpartum period,” Dr Perrykkad said.
She added that the mismatch between how parents feel and how they perform on cognitive tests is key to understanding the persistence of the “baby brain” narrative.
“So why do new parents, especially new mothers, commonly report experiences of baby brain? It is important not to dismiss what new parents are telling us,” she said.
“When we do find evidence for baby brain, it is more related to sleep and wellbeing than a true objective decline in cognition. This indicates it is just as important as ever to support new parents in these formative years.
“While it isn’t the end of the baby brain story, new parents can take solace in the fact that becoming a new parent doesn’t inherently impair their memory and cognition.”