The Maternal Brain

I know way too many women who blame their mental slip-ups (you know, forgetting or mixing things up) on what they call "Mommy Brain." Someone even told me that while she is pregnant her fetus sucks all the brain power out of her. While you may personally have substantial proof to back up this theory (I know a pregnant girl who spent hours making chocolates for Valentines Day, only to realize the next day that she had used all her Easter molds instead of her Valentine molds...), I wanted to share what the scientific community has found.

Scientists Craig Howard Kinsley and Kelly G. Lambert published an article a few years back in the magazine Scientific American on the maternal brain. Here is a summary (with my comments):

Mothers are made, not born. Virtually all female mammals, from rats to monkeys to humans, undergo fundamental behavioral changes during pregnancy and motherhood (ask any man if his wife underwent "fundamental behavioral changes"- I am certain Jared can vouch for this fact). What was once a largely self-directed organism devoted to its own needs and survival becomes one focused on the care and well-being of its offspring. Although scientists have long observed and marveled at this transition, only now are they beginning to understand what causes it. New research indicates that the dramatic hormonal fluctuations (again, any husband can vouch for these) that occur during pregnancy, birth and lactation may remodel the female brain, increasing the size of neurons in some regions and producing structural changes in others (there is hope!! There is a purpose to the hormonal roller coaster!).

Some of these sites are involved in regulating maternal behaviors such as building nests, grooming young (what, you are supposed to groom them?) and protecting them from predators. Other affected regions, though, control memory, learning, and responses to fear and stress. Recent experiments have shown that mother rats outperform virgins in navigating mazes and capturing prey. In addition to motivating females toward caring for their offspring, the hormone-induced brain changes may enhance a mother rat's foraging abilities, giving her pups a better chance of survival. What is more, the cognitive benefits appear to be long-lasting, persisting until the mother rats enter old age.

Isn't that amazing? They said that a mother rat takes just 70 seconds to track, attack and kill a cricket, while it takes childless rats 290 seconds.

I am not sure how good I would be at killing a cricket, but I definitely feel like I can type on the computer, soothe a baby, watch a two year old dance, and listen to a five year old ramble on about Star Wars with at least a limited amount of success. I know I would not have been capable of this five years ago. But I do know some women without children who are completely capable of all the things I do and more. So, perhaps for some of us it requires the ordeal of pregnancy to create the necessary changes in our brains to make us capable of caring for these darlings in our charge. It is empowering to know that some random scientist things I am physically, biologically, and mentally capable of being a mom, just by virtue of the fact that I am one.