Your Pregnant Brain: Part 1

pregnant brain

What happens to your brain when you’re pregnant? Jordan Gaines Lewis, a Neuroscience Doctoral Candidate at Pennsylvania State University, talks about morning sickness, “pregnancy nose”, and the dreaded mummy brain. 

A friend recently asked me, “Why have I become so forgetful since I became pregnant?” I told her I didn’t know, but that I’d look into it. She then followed with, “I was going to ask you explain something else to me, but I totally forgot what it was.” It’s a common claim that pregnancy makes you forgetful. But does “pregnancy brain” actually exist? There’s no doubt that many changes happen to a woman’s body during pregnancy, but how do these changes affect — or originate in — the brain? To answer my friend’s question, and in an effort to address whatever else she was forgetting at the time, here is part one of my expectant mother’s guide to the crazy neuroscience of pregnancy. 

Morning sickness

Stronger sense of smell

The question about forgetfulness 

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BUMP & baby is New Zealand’s only magazine for pregnancy and early babyhood. Our team of mums and mums-to-be understand what it’s like to be pregnant in this connected age, and that’s why BUMP & Baby online is geared toward what pregnant women and new mums really want to know.

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