My children always get me lovely Mother’s Day gifts. I’m excited to discover what gifts I will be able to open with my breakfast in bed Sunday. Today I learned that my children gave me a great gift on the day of their birth: I became smarter.
Funny, after all of my children were born, I didn’t feel smarter. In fact, I felt downright stupid as my memory seemed shot from the lack of sleep. Little did I know that my maternal hormones were actually causing my brain to increase in size.
Brain scans taken four months postpartum show an increase in gray matter in several key areas of a mother’s brain: the pre-frontal cortex, parietal lobe, and very important parts of the midbrain. These areas are responsible for the processes of reasoning and judgement, motivation, reward seeking and emotion processing. These changes are thought to be permanent.
If you forget to buy mom a gift or send a card this Mother’s Day, no need to fret as the day of your birth has given her the gift that keeps on giving — her ability to be smarter than you.
