The jury’s still out with many experts claiming baby brain is a myth.
However a recent study from Deakin University disagrees. They gave several hundred pregnant and non-pregnant women a few cognitive tasks including memorising numbers. Experts were surprised when the study found that pregnant mothers did worse than non-pregnant women in tasks which were focused on: attention, decision making, planning and memorising.
But this won’t come as a shock to expectant mamas across the land. They’ll tell you that when they’re pregnant they definitely become more ditsy and forgetful than usual. They reckon they start doing some pretty weird things that prove ‘pregnancy brain’ IS a thing.
Here are 10 ways you’ll know if you’ve got pregnancy brain:
You pour orange juice on your cornflakes
You make your breakfast and reach into the fridge and then pour orange juice all over your cereal.
And then, after making tea, put the kettle in the fridge.
You lose your keys and find them in the fridge
Every morning you can’t find your keys and find them behind the vegetables in the fridge or in the little pot you keep the teabags in.
You use your deodorant as hair spray
You reach out for some hair spray or dry shampoo and only after spritzing it liberally you realise you used your deodorant instead.
Or worse, you grab the piles cream instead of the toothpaste.
You forget where you parked your car
And spend an awkward 10 minutes walking round Tesco’s car park pressing the key fob and looking for a car to light up.
You add salt to your cuppa
It all looks the same. But you only realise your mistake when you take a sip. Yuck.
You can’t find your phone anywhere…
… only to realise you’re actually on a call to your sister and it’s in your hand.
You cry in the shop because you can’t find ripe avocados
You just really really really need one and when you’re thwarted you just can’t cope and dissolve into snottery tears mid-aisle. Your pain is real.
You wear odd shoes
You head out with mismatching shoes or even in your slippers.
You have butter fingers and keep dropping things
You feel like such a klutz as you just keep dropping things all over the floor.
And then it’s tricky to bend and pick them up with your ginormous bump in the way.
You forget words mid-sentence
You literally forget what you’re about to say mid sentence.
You forget even common words and end up in an embarrassing pause, making no sense whatsoever.
You try to open your front door with your car key
You stand in front of your front door frantically pressing your car key fob button and get very cross because it won’t open.
Your dinner takes ages to cook (because you forgot to put the oven on)
You wait ages and ages wondering why your food isn’t cooking and only after 45 minutes realise you’ve not switched the oven on.
You use your fingers to try and zoom into your book
Then remember it’s a paperback and not a digital book and feel a little foolish that the text didn’t get any bigger.
You take your child to school – on a Saturday
You whisk them out of bed, rush through the morning routine and nag them to leave the house on time and get to the school gates to find that no one else is there.
Because it’s Saturday.
You lose your toddler in the house
You cry out to your partner because you can’t find your toddler.
Only to realise he’s on your hip and in your arms.
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