11 Big Fat Pregnancy Myths

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"Pregnancy brain" makes it impossible to concentrate.

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(Image credit: Dreamstime)

This may be true in the first few months, when a 30-fold increase in progesterone makes most women really, really, sleepy. And some researchers say pregnancy hormones may make it hard for a pregnant woman to remember where she placed her keys.

But pregnancy brain may not be all bad.

In a small pilot study of 10 women, Stone and colleagues found that women tend to have increased attention spans in their third trimester. If the results are confirmed in a larger group of women something the researchers are currently working on it may be an indicator of "neuronal nesting."

"This may be nature's way of increasing the attention a mother is going to need to give a newborn," Stone said.

Robin Nixon Pompa
Robin Nixon Pompa

Robin Nixon is a former staff writer for Live Science. Robin graduated from Columbia University with a BA in Neuroscience and Behavior and pursued a PhD in Neural Science from New York University before shifting gears to travel and write. She worked in Indonesia, Cambodia, Jordan, Iraq and Sudan, for companies doing development work before returning to the U.S. and taking journalism classes at Harvard. She worked as a health and science journalist covering breakthroughs in neuroscience, medicine, and psychology for the lay public, and is the author of "Allergy-Free Kids; The Science-based Approach To Preventing Food Allergies," (Harper Collins, 2017). She will attend the Yale Writer’s Workshop in summer 2023.