Changes In The Brain During Pregnancy
The transformation that takes place in a woman’s body during pregnancy is easy to see. But not everyone knows that a mother’s brain also changes a lot during this time.
What are we talking about here? Learn more about how your brain changes during pregnancy .
Weight gain. Nausea. Back pain. Those annoying hormone fluctuations that make you go through ups and downs. These are perhaps the most well-known consequences of pregnancy for women, but they are not the only ones.
However, these changes are not all negative. In fact, they will help you take care of your baby. Maternal instinct develops even before your baby is born.
How the mother’s brain changes during pregnancy
Basically, science has shown that gray matter in a mother’s brain shrinks during pregnancy.
Gray matter is found throughout the brain, brain stem, and spinal cord and is responsible for processing information. In fact, the amount of gray matter in our brain is generally linked to intelligence.
Surprisingly, the shrinkage is particularly remarkable in the areas of our brain that are responsible for empathy. The loss of neurons in this area, especially when we need to understand the sensations of the growing fetus in the womb, may seem contradictory.
In fact, scientists have found that this reduction in neural connections in the empathy center of the brain takes place precisely because it makes our brain much more efficient.
This means that the loss of gray matter does not necessarily mean a loss of skills.
Another powerful effect pregnancy has on the brain is how we perceive our surroundings. Pregnant women will be much better able to sense when danger is near.
This effect persists for up to two years after the birth. There is a clear neuroscientific explanation for maternal instinct.
Side effects
Because a mother’s brain sacrifices some level of rational thinking in order to strengthen instincts, pregnancy reduces some skills while increasing others.
Here are just a few examples of how a mother’s brain changes during pregnancy:
- Reminder: Many expectant mothers report becoming forgetful during pregnancy, even if they weren’t before. Changes in the gray matter of the brain could explain this.
- Stress: Pregnant women experience less stress, mostly thanks to oxytocin. This explains why new mothers are able to get through the chaos and sleepless nights without suffering the same consequences as usual.
- People Skills: Have you ever noticed that mothers sometimes have the ability to read minds? In large part, this is because a pregnant woman’s brain prepares to interpret non-verbal signals. This makes sense: babies cannot speak, so this skill becomes basic in the early years. This can also prove useful in other areas.
- Courage: Both before and after childbirth, women have a little more courage to get through labor, as well as possible risks to their little one’s life.
And the fathers?
One study analyzed groups of around 20 men and women, some without and some with children or a baby on the way.
With the help of magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers discovered changes in gray matter in the mothers, but not in the fathers.
However, this study did not look at men who performed most of the childcare responsibilities.
Certain theories suggest that when a father is primarily responsible for a young child, his brain also experiences changes that promote certain skills.
Specifically, these changes have to do with the production of oxytocin. This hormone plays a key role in breastfeeding, but men can produce it too.
Oxytocin promotes a better understanding of the baby’s needs and emotions.
What is the explanation for these changes?
As with almost everything that happens during pregnancy, the way the brain changes is closely related to our hormones. The hormonal upheaval in a pregnant woman’s body also affects her brain.
It’s important to remember that these are positive adjustments. The observed effects of pregnancy on the brain are scientific evidence of the special bond between mother and child.
A mother’s instinct to protect her baby is evident in the brain itself.
So the next time you notice a mother who appears to have “magical” abilities in relation to her child, you will have an inkling of where those abilities come from.
It’s all in the brain: that wonderful organ that adapts to every phase of human life.
