Have you heard of the term momnesia? One mom shares her experience with forgetfulness after giving birth (plus read about its possible causes here).
What can you read in this article?
- What is momnesia and what causes it?
- Ways to manage mom brain and forgetfulness after giving birth
I miss the days when my mind could store gigabytes upon gigabytes of memory without any glitch.
Believe it or not, I used to attend meetings without taking any notes. I used to do grocery shopping without a checklist and compose an article without a pen and paper or a laptop. I stored every paragraph, every important quote, every grocery item inside my highly dependable human memory.
Nine months of pregnancy and nine months of postnatal experience later, that sharp memory of mine is now nothing but a memory. I forget about almost anything. From forgetting to put my baby’s body wash inside the travel bag to forgetting I already brushed my teeth a few minutes ago.
I feel like I am the real-life counterpart of Dory, Pixar’s popular royal blue-tang fish character suffering from short-term memory loss.
While I choose to poke fun at myself and laugh about it along with my colleagues, I must admit that my forgetfulness after giving birth, or what is often referred to as “mom brain" or "momnesia," has affected my confidence and productivity.
Whenever I forget to bring one of my baby’s essentials, I doubt my capacity to be a responsible mother. Whenever I forget deadlines at work, it makes me feel less efficient.
What is momnesia?
To find out whether my post-natal “momnesia” is normal or not, I read different articles about it. One of the reading materials I encountered mentioned that in 2016, a paper published in Nature Neuroscience, reveals that pregnancy indeed modifies a woman’s brain, revamping it in ways that continue even after a woman has given birth.
The research team, led by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona’s Elseline Hoekzema, compared brain scans of women before pregnancy and the brain scans of these same women during pregnancy.
Their study’s results showed noteworthy “reductions in the volume of grey matter” (which contains nerve cells) in the brains of the women during pregnancy. In short, there is a physical transformation happening in the brain when a woman gets pregnant.
The "momnesia" phenomenon was also studied a long time ago by researchers at Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their conclusion mentions that post-natal forgetfulness may be attributed to four factors: hormones, pain, priorities, and fatigue.
Dr. Cornelia Chee, the head of the National University Hospital’s Department of Psychological Medicine, said there is “clear evidence” that a woman’s brain changes during pregnancy and after, with cognitive changes for the worse taking place during the same period.
Moms like me don't have to go through a lot of research to agree. Our experience is enough proof.
What causes mom brain?
So what really causes mommy brain? Here are some of the possible culprits:
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Hormones
This favorite suspect of many pregnant and new mothers is blamed for every little change in the body--from cravings to mood swings to dark underarms!
Now, we can blame it too for our newfound forgetfulness. We may not like the effects of these signaling molecules, but our Creator surely has his own genius reasons for making hormones exist in our system.
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Pain
An article I read recently quoted New Mexico School of Medicine gynecologist Dr. Sharon Phelan as saying “forgetfulness is part of women's defense mechanism after the pain and rigors of childbirth."
Having read this, I somehow developed gratitude for this new mommy forgetfulness syndrome. True enough, if memories of all mothers remain as sharp as before, some moms would probably not want to go through pregnancy and childbirth again.
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Priorities
As a new mom, my priority is to take care of my baby. Taking care of baby means changing the diapers, nursing the baby, bathing the baby, cleaning the breast pumps, washing baby’s clothes, preparing the baby bag, buying the baby food, and a whole lot more.
All these little details are stuck in one unsteady little memory bank inside mommy’s brain, fighting for mommy’s attention. So I guess forgetting where I placed my mobile phone or the date today or the name of the new girl in the office or whether or not I already brushed my tooth is forgivable. These things are simply not a priority at this moment.
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Fatigue
All new moms are tired. Waking up at night to attend to a crying child, washing baby’s clothes, playing with your child, cleaning your house, feeding your family, juggling family life and work, and a whole lot more will undoubtedly make any new mother physically exhausted. Fatigue can definitely negatively affect anyone’s memory.
Dr. Chee also said that these changes in our brain “probably have a lot to do with the poor sleep that pregnant and postnatal women have."
In their third trimester, pregnant women “qualify as having a sleep disorder” due to multiple interruptions to their rest, probably due to their discomfort, frequent urinating, and movement of the fetus. As new moms, we all get restless nights because of frequent feeding sessions and keeping up with our newborn's needs.
As a result, our working memory gets worse, and other symptoms like poor concentration, being irritable, and slips of the tongue manifest, and according to Dr. Chee, these are all “extremely common” among pregnant and postnatal women.
READ MORE:
Worried about "mommy brain"? Here are 7 ways to keep your mind sharp
Mom Confession: "My anxiety came back when I became a stay-at-home mom."
When you're struggling to remember where you left your car keys, it's impossible to imagine that there could be any upside to this mom brain. But however inconvenient having momnesia can be, there are actually some benefits to it.
For one, as mentioned earlier, the skills you think you might have lost are actually being replaced by others that are more useful to you as a parent. You might not remember the details of the last meeting, but you surely know how to change your baby's diaper half-asleep.
Dr. Charles Siow, a neurologist at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital said that changes in the brain support the behavioral tasks of motherhood, promoting calm and focus during stressful situations. This enables us, moms, to interpret what different newborn cries mean and become more vigilant around potential dangers.
Aside from helping us better protect our kin, apparently, our mom brain also helps us bond with our child.
According to Dr. Siow, the changes in a mom's brain have also been associated with better attachment with our babies, as well as increased confidence in our parenting ability.
Citing a recent study, the neurologist said that changes in the brain can occur even two years after pregnancy, particularly in areas involving social cognition or the ability to feel empathy for another.
“Mothers who showed the biggest drops in grey-matter volume reported the warmest relationships with their babies,” he said.
How do you manage momnesia?
Since postpartum forgetfulness is inevitable, I choose to manage it over mourning it. Here are some of the things I do to overcome this mom brain which I want to share with my fellow moms:
1. Don’t be too hard on yourself
I’ve eventually learned to let the inconsiderate, nasty comments go by. They don’t deserve to control the way we view ourselves. We’re doing a lot of things already as a new mom. We don’t need unnecessary baggage to carry.
2. Take down notes
Whether in a meeting with a client or in a workshop, I’ve learned to write important matters down. I prefer taking notes using my mobile phone’s note app, but the good old pen and paper duo might work for other moms. The medium doesn’t matter, as long as it serves the purpose of keeping important ideas for you.
3. Create a daily calendar
Download a calendar app on your mobile phone or get a girly planner to get your schedule organized. I prefer having a calendar on my mobile phone, though; with it, I can set an alarm to remind me of my upcoming appointments.
4. Assign important objects a specific place
Misplacing things is common for new moms like me. It took a while before I accepted that, but when I finally did, I devised a way to avoid it. I mentally assign a regular spot for important things.
For instance, I trained my mind that whenever I remove my office watch, I need to put it inside the front pocket of my office bag. That’s the only place I keep my office watch. I keep the house keys inside the drawer near the TV. There has to be a regular way of keeping things so my mind can easily associate items with where I kept them.
5. Create your own mnemonic
My online search taught me that mnemonic devices can help me remember important things. The ROYGBIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) acronym surely worked when we were still little children to memorize the colors of the rainbow, so I’m sure it will not hurt to use acronyms and other mnemonic devices again, now that we’re mommies.
6. Take photos
Since our phones nowadays already have a built-in camera, we might as well maximize it. My husband and I always take a photo of the parking lot level where our car is parked whenever we go to the mall. I also take photos of price tags whenever I go to the supermarket to help me remember the prices of goods.
7. Ask for help and delegate tasks
Yes, we can multitask, but we also need to accept that our minds and bodies have limits. There is truly nothing wrong with asking for some assistance from the people around us, especially at home.
We can always ask help from our husbands, our parents, household helpers, or even grown-up children to help in preparing the baby bag, for instance. Delegating the little tasks can help us focus on more important responsibilities.
Post-natal forgetfulness is an expected challenge for every new mother. But with the right mindset, discipline, every strong mom can surely handle momnesia with grace. Soon, this forgetful phase in our life will also be just a memory.