A ‘Mommy Brain’ Story

A few evenings ago, I had to rush to our local No Frills to get something that I really badly needed to make dinner with. I waited impatiently for my husband to come home so that he can watch the kids while I am gone.  When he came home I told him that I needed to go to the store to buy essentials.

He called after me, “what do you need at this hour from there? Can’t you just make dinner with whatever we have here?”

Yeah right, coming from a guy who is so picky when it comes to food and give me baleful looks when he is not impressed by what he sees in the dinner table! I did not bother to answer him. I just got in my car and drove off to the store before it closes for the night.

I made it in time and bustled my way through the customers to get my cart and in I went! Okay, here comes the fun part! I stopped dead in my tracks for a short while and racked my brain on why on earth  I was there at six in the evening when I should be at home making dinner for my family. I knew I was missing a key ingredient for the menu and I am here to get that but unfortunately, I forgot what it was! I did not have a habit of making a shopping list when there is not much to buy but for exactly that reason,  I forgot what to buy!

I wandered through the aisles hoping that it will come to my mind. Like you know, when I glance at the grocery shelves the required ‘stuff’ will magically jump out of somewhere. But obviously, it didn’t happen! I stayed around helpless for a while and then went to the frozen food section, bought a tub of Chapman’s  Ice cream and left the store. So much for doing the essential shopping! I knew the Ice cream is going to help me after I  have the ‘row’ with my husband for making this unwanted, untimely trip to the grocery store! And yes, the Ice cream did help after we had our ‘row’ later that night.

Anyways, the point is I do have issues with ‘Mommy Brain’ occasionally. Sometimes, this forgetfulness mess with trivial matters and sometimes major ones. Mommy brain pops out in the most unwanted situations like the one I mentioned before. It also ranges through small things like forgetting to finish the laundry and leaving all the clothes in the washer for days, not making to scheduled appointments on time, not showing up for dinner parties or other get-togethers as planned etc…etc..etc.. Yeah, let’s just stop there.

I am so embarrassed to mention some of the ‘other’ incidents related to this. The reason why I decided to write about Mommy Brain is because of a tidbit of information that I read in a magazine recently about our topic. Ha! I knew there was a perfectly scientific explanation for this! So, Mommies among you who are fighting this villain in their lives just like me, Hear!Hear!

Pregnancy just doesn’t change your body mechanism, it just rewires every last neuron that you own in that body! If this is any consolation, Researchers at England’s Hammersmith Hospital finds that the brains of healthy women shrink by up to six percent in their pregnant life! (how unfair is that?). This shrinkage is the culprit which causes my mommy brain issues and its consequences. Needless to say, it also creates a certain ‘fuzziness’ in the over all brain functionality. But on the good side, most of these brains recover their pre-pregnancy size twenty-four weeks after the baby’s birth! Don’t you lose your hearts, dear moms! Mommy brain doesn’t last forever!

Take a look at some other information that might be interesting to you which I found elsewhere:

• Mac Master University did studies in 2010 and came out with some facts. Pregnant women are likely to be more vigilant and wary of male faces. Their theory is that it is mostly to avoid threat and violence from their counterparts since women are very vulnerable in their pregnant stage.
• Pregnancy hormones charge up the prefrontal cortex. This is the part that allows the humans to multi-task (Now, are you thinking what  I am thinking? That is right, our husbands doesn’t even stand a chance when it comes to multi-tasking.They are HOPELESS)
• Pregnant women release oxytocin during the labour and nursing. The secretion of this hormone makes them calmer and more trusting. (Hmmm…….)
• A Yale University study in 2010 came out with a finding that mothers who showed a tremendous amount of positive emotion towards their babies (calling them  ‘beautiful’ and ‘perfect’) sets off structural changes in their brain, triggering its information processing capacity. (I have nothing to say that)
• I am sure you must have heard this “First trimester is not a good time to travel”. There is also another reason unearthed from some scientific studies. That the pregnant women grow tense around strangers. This effect might also be linked to the fact that the body is immunosuppressed during the first trimester and ‘outsiders’ might harbour the germs which could be dangerous to the fetus.