14 DAY TRIAL // It's a widely known fact that women tend to be more forgetful during pregnancies. Many have reported such feelings as they were carrying babies, and now a new scientific study lends some additional substrate to their claims. Experts have recently determined that elevated levels of pregnancy-related hormones indeed appear to be hampering memory in women, but say that future research is needed in order for a clearer conclusion to be drawn, LiveScience reports.
Many studies into this alleged correlation were conducted before this one, all based largely on anecdotal evidences of this effect. However, those investigations came up empty-handed, as they did not produce any viable evidence as to any link. “I think women are interested and sometimes worried about their memory, and whether they're going to get it back if they feel that they've lost some of their cognitive function during pregnancy,” says Diane Farrar, a research scientists who holds a double appointment, at the University of Bradford, and the Bradford Institute for Health Research, in England.
“We know for sure that sex steroids at high levels can have damaging effects on neurons. We can't really check to see what's happening, so it's pretty difficult really. We can only speculate that it could be the sex steroid levels that are affecting cognitive function,” she adds, quoted by LiveScience. Some of the experiments which the researcher and her team conducted revolved around assessing pregnant women's spatial memory skills. Questionnaires aimed at figuring this out, as well as their levels of anxiety, and their mood, were passed on, and the 23 test subjects filled them out.
The questions were also given to 24 controls, who were asked to undertake the exact same tests. The level of several hormones in all women was measured at various intervals during the pregnancy. While results for the first trimester were comparable between the two groups, things changed in the second and third ones. Spatial memories tests administered later in the pregnancy were a lot more difficult for pregnant women to complete successfully, whereas the other females had no problem filling out the questions.