Trusted Information for Healthy Pregnancies
memory loss
Pregnancy baby brain lapse ‘a myth’
Feb 3rd
Expectant mums need to stop blaming their bump for memory lapses, say experts who want to dispel the "baby brain" myth.
Neither pregnancy nor motherhood addle a woman's brain, say the researchers based on their study of 1,241 women both before and after having babies.
Any absentmindedness might be adaptive, shifting attention to the baby, the British Journal of Psychiatry says.
Lead researcher Professor Christensen said: "Part of the problem is that pregnancy manuals tell women they are likely to experience memory and concentration problems - so women and their partners are primed to attribute any memory lapse to the 'hard to miss' physical sign of pregnancy.
Her team from The Australian National University followed up the large group of women at four-year intervals using memory tests.
During the course of the study more than half of the women fell pregnant, but this did not appear to have any impact on memory.
The test scores remained unchanged before and after pregnancy and did not differ greatly between the group of women who became mums and the group of those who did not.
Professor Christensen and her team said: "Not so long ago, pregnancy was 'confinement' and motherhood meant the end of career aspirations.
"Our results challenge the view that mothers are anything other than the intellectual peers of their contemporaries.
"obstetricians, family doctors and midwives may need to use the findings from this study to promote the fact that 'placenta brain' is not inevitable."
Cathy Warwick of the Royal College of Midwives said: "It is about time that some research lays to rest this notion of pregnant women and the 'baby brain' myth.
"The physical and emotional stresses on a woman's body from pregnancy can make women feel more tired than usual.
"As we all know tiredness - for men as well as women - can make us lose concentration and cause us to function less effectively.
"This is why midwives encourage pregnant women to take appropriate rest breaks, at home and at work. Many pregnant women will need this rest, and all of them deserve it."
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Pot smoking during pregnancy may stunt fetal growth
Jan 22nd
Women who smoke marijuana during pregnancy may impair their baby's growth and development in the womb, a new study suggests.
Poor fetal growth and reduced head circumference at birth are linked to an increased risk of problems with thinking, memory and behavior in childhood. Cigarette smoking during pregnancy is known to impair fetal growth, but studies on the potential effects of marijuana have been inconclusive.
For the new study, researchers in the Netherlands followed more than 7,000 pregnant women, 3 percent of whom acknowledged smoking marijuana at least during early pregnancy. They found that babies born to marijuana users tended to weigh less and have smaller heads than other infants.
What's more, the study found, the longer a woman had used marijuana during pregnancy, the stronger the impact on birth size - suggesting that the drug itself was to blame.
And while most marijuana users in the study also smoked cigarettes, the drug appeared to have effects over and above those of tobacco. In fact, marijuana showed stronger effects on birth size than tobacco, the investigators report in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
The findings suggest that marijuana use, even restricted to early pregnancy, may have irreversible effects on fetal growth, write the researchers, led by Hannan El Marroun of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam.
The study included almost 7,500 pregnant women who were surveyed on their use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs, and had ultrasounds to chart fetal growth during the first, second and third trimesters.
Overall, 214 women said they had used marijuana before and during early pregnancy; 81 percent quit after learning they were pregnant, but 41 women continued to smoke marijuana throughout pregnancy.
The researchers found that, on average, marijuana users gave birth to smaller babies, particularly those who had used throughout pregnancy.
Women who had smoked only during early pregnancy had babies who were 156 grams -- about 5.5 ounces -- lighter than infants born to women who had not used the drug. Women who had continued to smoke past early pregnancy had babies who were 277 grams, or nearly 10 ounces, smaller.
Based on ultrasound, marijuana use only in early pregnancy impaired fetal growth by about 11 grams per week, while use throughout pregnancy slowed fetal growth by roughly 14 grams per week. That compared with a deficit of 4 grams per week with tobacco use, the researchers found.
Similar patterns were seen when the researchers looked at fetal head circumference.
According to El Marroun's team, mothers' marijuana use could stunt fetal growth for several reasons. Like tobacco smoking, it may deprive the fetus of oxygen. It is also possible that the byproducts of marijuana directly affect the developing nervous and hormonal systems of the fetus.
Finally, the researchers note, pregnant women who use marijuana may have other factors in their lives - such as a less-than-healthy diet or chronic stress -- that could contribute to poor fetal growth.
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Finally, an Excuse for Pregnant Women to Eat Bacon and Eggs
Jan 4th
If you're pregnant and looking for an excuse to eat bacon and eggs, now you've got one: a new research study published in the January 2010 print issue of the FASEB Journal by a team of University of North Carolina researchers shows that choline plays a critical role in helping fetal brains develop regions associated with memory. Choline is found in meats, including pork, as well as chicken eggs.
"Our study in mice indicates that the diet of a pregnant mother, especially choline in that diet, can change the epigenetic switches that control brain development in the fetus," said Steven Zeisel, the senior scientist involved in the work and a senior member of the FASEB Journal's editorial board. "Understanding more about how diet modifies our genes could be very important for assuring optimal development."
Zeisel and colleagues made this discovery by feeding two groups of pregnant mice different diets during the window of time when a fetus develops its hippocampus, that part of the brain responsible for memory. The first group received no choline while the other received choline (1.1g/Kg). The group that received no choline had changes in epigenetic marks on the proteins (histones) that wrap genes in cells responsible for the creation of new brain cells (neural progenitor cells). Then, by isolating these cells from the developing brains and growing them in cell culture, the scientists determined the expression of genes for two proteins that regulate neuronal cell creation and maturation. These two proteins (G9a and Calb1) were changed in the brains of fetuses whose mothers were fed low choline diets.
The Agricultural Research Service says that "experts suggest that an adequate choline intake is 425 milligrams a day for women and 550 milligrams a day for men. Top sources of choline include meat, nuts, and eggs."
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