Cognition in pregnancy and the first year post‐partum

Abstract

A longitudinal study measured the performance of a group of 15 pregnant women on tests of verbal memory, divided attention, and focused attention on four occasions (second trimester, third trimester, 6 weeks post-partum, and 1 year post-partum) while at the same time obtaining self-assessment ratings of these cognitive functions. A group of 14 non-pregnant women was studied at equivalent intervals. The two groups of women did not differ in performance on the objective tests, and there was no change in performance over time except for an improvement in the measure of focused attention from the first to the final testing occasion. However, the self-assessment ratings showed that in the second trimester, the pregnant women rated themselves as more impaired than before compared with the non-pregnant women for all three cognitive abilities. To ensure that this difference was not due to the retrospective nature of the comparison of current with previous cognitive ability, a second longitudinal study compared 25 pregnant and 10 non-pregnant women using daily ratings over a period of 1 week on four occasions during pregnancy and the first year post-partum. Women in the third trimester of pregnancy reported mild impairments in their focused and divided attention ability and their ability to remember what they had read compared with the non-pregnant women. The results show that there are perceived cognitive impairments during pregnancy. It is suggested that these may be the result of mild impairments which are not revealed in objective tests because they can be overcome by conscious effort in short periods of testing. Alternatively, the perceptions may not be based on actual impairments but may result from depressed mood or expectations concerning the effect of pregnancy on cognition.

Increasing Parity Is Associated with Cumulative Effects on Memory

“…10,12 The present study focused on verbal recall memory because the small existing body of literature examining memory changes in human pregnancy suggests that this may be the component of memory most sensitive to the physiologic changes of pregnancy. 18 The findings confirm women's common anecdotal reports of impaired memory during pregnancy 48,49 and represent an important piece of information for further understanding the relation between reproductive history and cognitive function in the human mother. However, this investigation represents a single step in the larger framework necessary to characterize the influences of reproductive history on the human maternal brain and behavior.…”

Pregnancy and the risk of a traffic crash

“…43 The gap between popular beliefs and scientific evidence has fueled speculations about survey respondents misattributing normal memory lapses to a current pregnancy. 44,45 No past study using driving simulators or detailed neuropsy- chological surrogates has directly tested whether driving errors might be increased during the second trimester.…”

Provision of information about newborn screening antenatally: a sequential exploratory mixed-methods project

“…18 The current approach to information provision, and the design of materials for communication in NBS, have not been informed by a recognised evidence base from the discipline of cognitive psychology, which suggests that women perform more poorly on memory tests in pregnancy and shortly after birth. [182][183][184][185][186][187] It is important to recognise that parents whose children are born preterm may not benefit from information provision in the third trimester; however, they should still benefit from more effective awareness strategies and drip-feeding of information across pregnancy, resulting in an enhanced likelihood that they are able to make a decision about NBS compared with current practice.…”