Did you know that motherhood profoundly changes the brain?

Health.- There are no mothers, or very few, who deny that their brain has changed following motherhood. And science is proving it more and more firmly. The brain changes during pregnancy and motherhood, as neuroscientist Susana Carmona has proven, researcher of the CB/07/09/0031 group, of the Biomedical Research Center in Mental Health Network.

In an interview with Europa Press Salud, on the occasion of the publication of ‘Neuromaternal’ (SineQuaNon)a book that compiles all his research on the subject since 2008, explains all the scientific evidence that exists so far on the subject.

Thus, the leader of the Neuromaternal Neuroimaging Group of the Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital also states that “The brain changes fundamentally with pregnancy and the more it changes, the stronger the bond with the baby.”

These results had a great impact and were soon transferred to popular science, he says, although he regrets that, at times, they were not well understood and everything was limited to the fact that the volume of grey matter in certain regions of the brain was reduced, and The information was taken to the pejorative and the anecdote that ‘women’s brains atrophied during pregnancy’.

In turn, this researcher recalls that those molecules that go to the system immune say that not only should they not attack the baby, but they should protect it; at the same time which cites, for example, that the circulatory system must also manufacture and pump during pregnancy more blood; or the fact that the kidneys filter differently.

In the case of the brain, he says that hormones are able to enter the brain, because Many of them cross the macroencephalic barrier, and the neurons and the other cells The brain has receptors for this: “When hormones bind to these, they are activated mechanisms of neuroplasticity; we know all this from animal models, but in humans no “had been studied”this neuroscientist acknowledges.

In humans, he continues, until he did a study on the subject there was nothing serious. done. Yes, there were studies 50 years ago, especially on rats. “These, normally, or attack or avoid the young. It has been seen that when they are given a hormonal regimen similar to that of pregnancy, you modify its brain and that animal behaves maternally. The link between pregnancy hormones, brain changes and maternal behavior is well established since 50 years ago in other placental mammals. The new thing we have done is to explore it in humans,” says this researcher.

In his research group, Carmona explains that they have observed with magnetic resonance reductions in gray matter volume during pregnancy, which are usually attributed to atrophy, and which are very similar to those that occur in adolescence, when the volume

gray matter decreases.

“An adult has a smaller volume of grey matter than a child. During adolescence, produces an increase in sexual hormones that modify the girl’s body to convert it in the woman’s body, and also modify her brain, through different processes, which are result in a reduction in the volume of grey matter. So it is not always more better, and less is worse. It depends on the whole context,” he describes.

Now, at a functional level, this expert from Gregorio Marañón maintains that Yes they do occur certain activations in certain brain regions, for example, in those that encode the motivation or the need to act or be in contact with the baby, “as if the baby in the The first few days represent an appetitive stimulus for the mother,” and every time the mother sees the baby, This brain nucleus, so involved in desire, is activated.

“In animal models we know that once this happens, that lpregnancy hormones They prepare the woman’s brain so that the baby is the most important thing, then the hormones disappear from the equation and it is the interaction with the baby that modulates the mother’s brain and maternal behavior. That is, maternal behavior is not only achieved through the hormones of the gestation, but there are different routes, some are easier and faster, and others are slower,” clarifies.

However, this researcher warns that reducing the volume does not have to be bad. of the mothers’ brains, using the aforementioned case of adolescence. That said, remember There are many women who say that their brain has never been the same following being mother.

For example, he maintains that the meta-analysis shows that at the end of gestation and at the beginning of Postpartum mothers score worse on memory tasks than non-pregnant women, and that these effects diminish when controlled for sleep, diet, depression, and symptoms affective: “It has also been observed that, if instead of making them remember random words, is made up of things related to the baby, pregnant women and mothers score higher; that is, that in the end everything responds to a change of interests.”

On the other hand, he points out that the baby has the ability to hijack our resources. attentional, he continues: “If we divide mental resources as if it were a cake, and we do it We divide it into portions, right now, my daughter has eaten half of the cake, there is a part that She is attentive to what might happen to her, and if she is present even this is worse.”

For this reason, Susana Carmona advocates contextualize the cognitive and memory deficits of the that is so much said regarding being typical of pregnancy and motherhood, knowing that a large part of The mother’s mental resources are dedicated to these other tasks or learning, which They seem to have no value, but in a very short time you have to learn to take care of a human being because otherwise he dies.

“It is important to emphasize that it is not what I lose, but everything that I have to learn and that my The brain has to adapt to this new role of caring for something defenseless, and which is much more relevant than remembering where your keys are,” he adds.

She also mentions that there are cross-sectional studies in older women, in women who were mothers decades ago, at 70 years old, and who show that those who have been Moms perform better on cognitive tasks and have younger brains.

“One possible explanation is that since you have had to function with all these tasks, in which the baby also eats half of, it’s like constantly doing sudokus, like doing the famous ‘brain training’ to train the brain and not to lose and have a cognitive reserve and reach

to old age,” he stresses.

So, as he notes, As we get older, those who have children They are used to putting their brain at maximum performance in order to function, but the Children need less and less of us, it’s like we’re doing those brain weights for years and as we grow older we have a greater cognitive reserve. “This has been proven with meta-analysis, several studies that find the same result,” he points out.

Now, we asked Susana Carmona if these changes that occur during pregnancy, Do they occur once more in each pregnancy for those who have had more than one child? He points out that his Studies have been carried out exclusively on primiparous women, women who have never had a child, and

They evaluate them before, during, and following pregnancy; although he maintains that there are other groups research groups that are working on it.

It has been demonstrated in this sense, as the Gregorio Marañón expert assures, that the The main changes seem to be mainly with the first child, and that successive pregnancies go adding up.

“For example, the more children you have, the younger your brain is until you have three children. Then things fall apart. The same thing happens with Alzheimer’s risk, you have a lower risk. risk until three or four children, but large multiparous women begin to have a higher risk of

certain pathologies like this one,” he warns.

Data from animal models indicate that the first pregnancy is consequently the which modifies the brain the most, and then the other pregnancies are ‘adjustments’; “so that the effects of circuit organization occur, above all, in the first gestation, and then reorganize. “But we are still acquiring data,” he says.

On whether these changes occur for life, this researcher maintains that she has come to analyze the changes up to 6 years following delivery, but remember that those The aforementioned studies of 70-year-old women who have become mothers show that their brains is different of those that have not been. “These give you clues that, surely, the changes that produced in the mother’s brain from pregnancy last a lifetime. This does not mean that throughout our lives we have the same maternal involvement,” adds Susana Carmona.

Finally, we asked Infosalus for a series of tips to take care of the brain of the mothers: “A main tip is to read, learn and get to know ourselves. This allows us to have certain perspective when things happen to us, and for example, the next time I leave my keys, think which is more because I was paying more attention to my daughter, not for anything else, it helps us to see it from out, which happens to many of us; and also when it comes to taking into account that with motherhood The brain also changes, and there are not only logistical changes.”