Do women's brains really change when they become mothers?
Yes, says neuroscientist Susana Carmona. But the changes actually start before they give birth.
Carmona has been studying women's brains for years in Spain, where she lives, and has found that a woman's brain actually changes during pregnancy.
"It's a novel field, but a very promising one because we found very intense changes that are associated with gestational hormones, and that seem to be important for maternal wellbeing," Carmona told USA TODAY. She recently released a book, "A Mother's Brain: The New Science of the Neuro-Maternal Revolution," about her findings.
Women often point to "pregnancy brain" or "mommy brain" during pregnancy and in the years that follow, as they rear young children.
But more recently, mothers, psychologists and maternal mental health advocates have brought forth the idea of matrescence, or that women actually go through a "second puberty" when they become mothers. Women's brains go through the same pruning process during matrescence as adolescents' do during puberty, experts say.
"Matrescence is literally the process of becoming a mother. It is the physical, psychological, emotional and social transformation a woman goes through when they become a mom," Michelle Battersby, president of Peanut, a social networking app for moms, previously told USA TODAY. "And it is also the most profound neurological change an adult human brain will ever go through."
Carmona agrees, and adds that the changes can last a woman's lifetime and through multiple pregnancies.
"Pregnancy changes your brain in a more intense and dynamic manner than it did during adolescence" Carmona says.
What happens to the brain during pregnancy?
So, what's actually happening in the brain during pregnancy? Carmona says a pregnant mother's cerebral cortex shrinks during pregnancy, much like it did during puberty − but that's not a bad thing.
"We tested whether these decreases were associated with cognitive performance. We didn't find any association," she says.
After the decrease in volume during pregnancy, she says, a mother's gray matter increases slightly post childbirth but does not reach preconception levels. The new pathways that a mother's brain creates during pregnancy and the neuroplasticity matrescence provides, she says, help mothers respond to their child's stimuli.
New mothers learn a lot "at light speed" during those early days and months of parenthood, Carmona says, to keep "a human being alive."
While gestational mothers see much more pronounced brain changes, Carmona says, non-gestational parents − people who become parents via surrogacy or adoption, and other non-carrying parents − also experience matrescence.
"These changes seem to facilitate maternal care. But they are neither necessary nor sufficient," Carmona adds. "You can arrive to maternal care through other routes, of course. We don't need a brain image to say that fathers are perfect caregivers, adoptive mothers are wonderful caregivers."
Is 'mommy brain' real?
Matrescence and the brain shifts pregnant women experience are so much more than "mommy brain," Carmona says.
Because brain shifts aren't visible, she says, the negative "mommy brain" narrative − and women insisting that their memory is not what it was before parenthood − persists. But there are many layers to the "pregnancy brain" effect.
Physically, Carmona says, new mothers are exhausted because gestation and lactation are "highly metabolically demanding," she says, comparing those demands to running a marathon. On top of that, new parents don't get much sleep. "If you do not sleep, your memory is going to be worse," whether or not you're a parent.
On the psychological level, an infant's stimuli is especially powerful to mothers in those first months. Everything their babies do "kidnap their attention," she says. "It's like this software running all the time in the background."
"So it's not that we are reducing the capacity," she says. "The baby is eating half of it during the first months."
Parents' cognitive performance doesn't decrease, she says. It's actually the opposite. "The challenges that go with motherhood are like a sudoku," she says.
The brain changes that occur during pregnancy and early parenthood are a superpower, Carmona says. But she cautions pregnant women that neuroplasticity can also lead to vulnerabilities if they have bad birth experiences, lack social support or experience financial or emotional stress.
"That's the other side of the coin," she says, and why "we have a higher incidence of mental health disorders" in new mothers.
She hopes understanding the brain changes women experience during pregnancy will help moms give themselves some grace.
"It kind of allows you to detach a little bit," she says. "Like, OK, this is what is going on. This is kind of universal."
Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach Madeline at memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ on X.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Moms' brains really do change in pregnancy. What a neuromaternal expert wants you to know
