The media’s preoccupation with motherhood being completely incompatible with the workplace continues. One can only hope that Dr Julie Henry was seriously misquoted here in this story on her study into the impacts of pregnancy on memory or ‘baby brain’ as it is oh so endearingly known.
Dr Julie Henry from the University of New South Wales says her study is the first to confirm that “baby brain” is a real condition. She says it makes pregnant women and new mothers struggle with complicated tasks.
Hmm. That second sentence could only ever have been written by someone who has never actually had to rear a newborn, because tending to newborns is quite a complicated fucking task and somehow new mothers seem to accomplish it rather well.
I find ‘baby brain’ quite handy. It makes me forget things that aren’t really very important… like stupid researchers names.
But I do remember important things. And I can focus on my own fucking research, and raising a child, and sometimes I even remember to go to work and co-ordinate projects. Perhaps those who think ‘baby brain’ is an indicator that women become stupid (rather than distracted by the monumental task at hand) could try staying home all day with my kid (he’s got a cold at the mo’ so it should be a piece of cake) and see whether they remember to get the milk when they go to the shops.
complicated tasks? I sometimes can’t remember why I went to the fridge but I manage everything else quite nicely.
I posted on this too:
http://inastrangeland.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/we-already-knew-baby-brain-is-real/
I seem to recall stuff being published more than 10 years ago showing the physical shrinkage of the brain due to loss of fluid, and showing the effect on memory. Nothing ground breaking (or surprising for any mother) there. They showed it can take up to 12 or 18 months for the brain to return to normal. They also pointed out that it *does* return to normal.
I cannot see how poor memory leads to poor performance on complicated tasks, not at all the same thing. I need to use a lot more memory aids, but once engrossed in a task, no matter how complicated, I notice no difference. Nor can I see any theoretical reason to expect it.
Actually, during pregnancy more than anything I suffered from “don’t give a damn” about work – it took serious will power to put in the necessary effort. I have no idea whether that is common. It goes away once the baby arrives.
I work in an extremely challenging job and I’ve always needed aides and plans and strategies to deal with the varying dimensions- this is an issue of workplace planning, not being a woman pregnant/ with kids. The only time I ever struggled – and it was a struggle – was when I was working with very minimal sleep, and I suspect this isn’t a sex or hormone issue so much as an issue or gendered patterns of care in the home.
And why do we keep having these studies, trying to figure out what’s wrong with women now? Why not more work on all the things that men could possibly screw up in the workplace? If you’re looking for problems you can always find them – what’s telling is where researchers look for those problems.
I pondered today the possibility of an Intervention on middle aged blokes. Because they are demonstrably hopeless at dealing with their own health care, so we ought to corral them, and do prostate checks, and make them have counselling in case they’re depressed. I think it’d work at least as well as the stuff done to women & indigenous people.
Is trying to make formula with no free hands, due to the screaming baby in your arms, not complicated? What about rearranging your whole life, in response to the turmoil created by a baby, particularly when you’ve just had an operation equivalent to being in a serious car accident?
Sheesh.
[…] becoming a mother reduces your mental abilities is such a tedious notion. The notion, as defined here in a previous post, is ‘baby brain’ – “.. it makes pregnant women and new mothers […]
[…] 2, 2010 by blue milk Predictably, you might think, I detest the whole ‘baby brain’ idea. So this from here caught my eye this week. The study, which appears in this month’s issue of […]