Latest Woman Affliction: Momnesia

Ever notice that new moms don’t hang out at clubs with you anymore? They seem forgetful or absent-minded when the baby’s not around? USA Today calls it “Momnesia.”

From the USAToday here:

Scientists agree. While researchers say they can’t explain all the ways motherhood affects a woman’s memory, they agree there’s a pattern.

Many moms feel mentally foggy in the days after delivery. And they notice that the details of labor and delivery, which are scenes one might expect to be seared into a woman’s consciousness, began to slowly slip away.

Few parents enjoy feeling so scatterbrained, says neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain. And momnesia can be dangerous, such as when moms forget to fasten the straps in an infant’s car seat. Yet momnesia may give modern mothers an evolutionary advantage, Brizendine says.

“It turns you into someone who serves that little infant, to keep it alive no matter what,” says Brizendine, founder of the Women’s and Teen Girls’ Mood and Hormone Clinic at the University of California in San Francisco. “Other parts of your brain that are usually on high alert are sort of taken offline.”

Women may be reluctant to talk about their memory problems for fear of being judged poorly at work, especially because returning to a demanding job puts even more stress on the brain, Brizendine says.

Speaking as someone who has lived around a new Mom, I have seen this to a certain extent in my wife, but only so far as the memories of the trials of childbirth slipping away. The rest of this article goes on to suggest that new Moms are chronically forgetful, zombie-like creatures that just provide boobage to the babies. That has not been my observation at all. Maybe its because of the help I provide at night with feedings or maybe its because she didn’t return to work after delivery, but she runs a tight ship around the house and doesn’t seem to suffer this curse of forgetfulness.

But there is a simple explanation for the phenomena- the female mind rewires itself to deal with new priorities and new responsibilities.