A review of the impact of pregnancy on memory function

Abstract

Although until recently much of the evidence for pregnancy-related deficits in memory was anecdotal or based on self-report, a number of studies have now been conducted that have tested whether these subjective appraisals of memory difficulties reflect objective impairment. However, these studies have failed to yield consistent results. A meta-analysis of the 14 studies that have been conducted over the past 17 years comparing pregnant and/or postpartum women with healthy matched controls on behavioral measures of memory was conducted. The results indicate that pregnant women are significantly impaired on some, but not all, measures of memory, and, specifically, memory measures that place relatively high demands on executive cognitive control may be selectively disrupted. The same specific deficits associated with pregnancy are also observed postpartum. These findings highlight the need for exploration of the etiologies and functional consequences of pregnancy-related memory difficulties and may help to guide the interpretation of neuropsychological data for the purpose of determining cognitive status in individuals who are pregnant or postpartum.

Differences in navigation performance and postpartal striatal volume associated with pregnancy in humans

“…The women in this group may have been positively selected on various dimensions of mental and physical health that are known to relate to the phenomena under study. In fact, this selection bias may help to explain why we do not observe impairments in other cognitive tasks, as observed in previous studies (Henry & Rendell, 2007). While we would agree that this likely bias weakens the external validity of the present results (e.g., generalization to the population of peripartal women), we contend that it improves their internal validity (i.e., studying the effects of estrogen on brain and behavior).…”

“…Since the previous literature on cognitive performance of pregnant women is contradictory (Christensen, Leach, & Mackinnon, 2010;Glynn, 2010;Henry & Rendell, 2007;Logan, Hill, Jones, Holt-Lunstad, & Larson, 2014) and it is not clear yet, whether pregnancy goes along with reliable performance decreases in specific cognitive abilities. Therefore, we included an extensive cognitive test battery to compare performance of pregnant and non-pregnant women in an exploratory manner.…”

“…This event bears the potential to reveal whether hormonal shifts in human females are associated with alterations in the neural substrates and learning strategies underlying navigation performance. No study so far has investigated navigation strategy or performance differences in relation to human pregnancy, but pregnancy-related differences in other cognitive abilities, such as memory, have been addressed (e.g., Henry & Rendell, 2007).…”

A systematic review of cognitive failures in daily life: Healthy populations

“…This has been particularly evident in women, with the whole gamut of phases including pre-menstrual states, menstruation, pregnancy and 'baby brain,' and menopause interfering with normal cognition in women (e.g. Cuttler et al, 2011;Henry & Rendell, 2007;Keogh, Cavill, Moore, & Eccleston, 2014;Sherwin, 2013). This could be another reason women tend to report more failures: they are regularly exposed to physiological processes that may interrupt functioning either directly, or indirectly through symptoms such as fatigue and lowered mood.…”

Analysis of relationship between memory functions and blood indices across parturition in primigravidae

“…Therefore, hormones of pregnancy which were the basis behind the study have effects on areas of the brain related to recent memory. 9,10 As compared to other studies, this study has helped to decipher clearly the particular domain of memory that is hampered during the time of pregnancy. This will help in future for identifying the exact path through which memory related studies in pregnancy should be lead.…”