Australian scientists have found that a woman’s memory may be impaired for at least a year after giving birth although the effects are minor and mainly concern unfamiliar or demanding tasks. Dr Henry and co-investigator Professor Peter Rendell, of the Australian Catholic University, compared the memory performances of more than 1,000 pregnant women, mothers and healthy non-pregnant females involved in 14 studies around the world. They found that pregnant women were considerably impaired on some, but not all, measures of memory. The scientists found that women experienced most difficulty with memory tasks that relied on “executive cognitive control,” i. According to Dr Henry, scientists still did not understand why a woman’s memory should be impaired at such an important time, but they suspected lifestyle factors played a role. read more

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