Recently a good friend who recently delivered twins asked me if there is an association between memory loss during pregnancy and in the postpartum period.
The answer is yes according to my brief Google and PubMed search.
The clinical significance and duration of the memory loss is not clear from these studies. And my brief online search of articles didn’t turn up any articles that address these clinical questions. My quick literature review suggests that we don’t have the answers to these clinical questions in the literature.
Resources:
(1) Hormones and Cognitive Functioning During Late Pregnancy and Postpartum: A Longitudinal Study [PubMed Abstract] [Full Text HTML] [Full Text PDF]. Behav Neurosci. 2012 Feb;126(1):73-85. doi: 10.1037/a0025540. Epub 2011 Sep 19.
(2) Assessment of cognitive function across pregnancy using CANTAB: a longitudinal study [PubMed Abstract]. Brain Cogn. 2014 Feb;84(1):76-84. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2013.11.003. Epub 2013 Dec 8.
(3) Pregnancy history and cognition during and after pregnancy [PubMed Abstract] [Full Text PDF]. Int J Neurosci. 2004 Sep;114(9):1099-110.
