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Essay / How pregnancy affects memory and attention
Approximately two-thirds of women who are pregnant or have recently given birth suggest some degree of cognitive deficits, particularly in terms of attention and more prevalent in memory, during pregnancy ( Brett and Baxendale, 2001). This report will examine the scientific evidence on the effects of pregnancy on memory, to determine whether such a deficit actually exists or whether it is just anecdotal reports. This report will consider both objective and subjective evidence since research on the subject primarily refers to these two approaches. Thus, the report aims to help pregnant women improve their knowledge and understand whether such evidence exists and how it affects the cognition and memory of pregnant women. (50) Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Women often claim that memory is affected by pregnancy (Brett & Baxendale, 2001), and since more than two thirds of women are at least pregnant then it is important to understand whether objective deficits are to blame subjective complaints. It is therefore important to distinguish and understand the differences between subjective and objective memory disorders during pregnancy, since the investigation of this topic mainly falls into these two categories. Subjective memory disorders are those that women self-report from everyday situations such as forgetting; many subjective reports address memory deficits (Brindle, Brown, Brown, Griffith, & Turner, 1991). Furthermore, objective memory disorders are those encountered in a well-controlled environment or in a laboratory in which the experimental conditions are controlled (Brindle et al., 1991). Although there are a series of studies examining memory and cognitive deficits during pregnancy as well as postpartum (Niven & Brodie, 1996), the lack of studies has investigated these deficits in memory skills by examining the relationship between subjective memory complaints and objective measures of cognitive function (Keenan et al., 1998). Recently, a survey distinguished pregnant women from non-pregnant women on a series of tests in the context of daily life (subjective approach) and well-controlled laboratory tests (objective approach). The results of this survey confirm that pregnancy is significantly linked to daily life problems. However, none of the objective laboratory tests reveal a link between pregnancy and memory problems (Cuttler et al., 2011). Therefore, the results confirm that pregnant women exhibit memory deficits in the setting of daily life, when women have competing demands for attention, but only in a laboratory environment where extraneous variables such as distractions are controlled, these deficiencies do not exist. As mentioned above, approximately 50 to 80 percent of women frequently report having some degree of cognitive and memory problems that they attribute to pregnancy. There are a considerable number of subjective studies indicating pregnancy-related memory impairment. In a naturalistic study on the effects of pregnancy on memory (Jarrahi-Zaden et al., 1969). The result indicates that 12 percent of pregnant women are reported to have “brain fog” during the pregnancy period. However, the accusation of such haze increased to 16 percent after childbirth. Additionally, later findings by Poser et al. (1986) revealed that more than 80 percent of pregnant women in their sample reported an increase in forgetfulness during pregnancy, 38 percent., 1999).