16 l Mom Brain l Understanding, Embracing & Managing Motherhood’s Mental Shifts

Feeling a little foggy, forgetful, and disoriented after having a baby? Don't worry, it's not just you—it's "mom brain." Trust us, we've been there, and it's an unexpected rite of passage in the wonderful chaos of motherhood. This episode peels back the layers of this phenomenon, exploring the scientific evidence that reveals how brain structure shifts post-pregnancy, and how hormones, physical changes, and sleep deprivation can all mess with your mental gears. We'll share some of our own embarrassing "mom brain" moments, with a good dose of humor, and discuss how we've learned to embrace this new aspect of our identities.

But it isn't all about the challenges. We'll also shine a light on the hidden strengths that emerge in the throes of parenthood - like seriously impressive multitasking abilities and heightened instincts that are fine-tuned to our children's needs. We've got some practical advice to share too, from task management strategies to self-care practices that bolster brain health. Life with kids can feel like a whirlwind but remember the whirlwind is also full of beautiful moments. Rather than striving for perfection, we hope this episode inspires you to embrace the chaos, give yourself a break, and maybe even try out new ways of coping with the wild ride of motherhood.

Thank you so much for joining us today . We’re so excited you’re taking this journey with us! They say it takes a village, welcome home mama!

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Email us @: Hello@postpartumconfessions.co

Felicia’s Instagram: @Felicia_Sorby
Bri’s Instagram: @Brie.Rodriquez

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Hey Mama, welcome to Postpartum Confessions, a podcast for anyone navigating the ups and downs of becoming a mom. I'm Felicia.

Speaker 2: 0:17

I'm Bri and we're here to bring you truly unfiltered conversations from the expected to the unexpected parts of being a mom, Whether you're trying to conceive, pregnant or already a mother, this podcast is for you.

Speaker 1: 0:27

Let's discover the secrets no one told you about motherhood and how to overcome them together. They say it takes a village. Welcome home.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Are you ready? Let's dive in.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Hey Mama Felicia here, Welcome back to a mini episode of Postpartum Confessions, our short, into-the-point conversations. Today we're going to talk about a well-known term mom brain.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Yes, hi Mama. This is Bri and I'm excited to get into this episode with you all, because mom brain is such a real thing. I mean forgetting something, forgetting a word, what I was doing, a thought, memories. It's all a little foggy, and one of the worst times well, actually this is probably not the worst time it was just a little embarrassing was like at work during like a presentation, and I just gone and I remember like making a joke of it and saying like oh gosh, I swear, and I swear, each kid has taken like a little piece of my brain. I'm really sorry. And then like trying to get back. So it was funny, but when I think about it it was kind of not funny Like I was, I don't know. It was so embarrassing, it made me super nervous and I don't know.

Speaker 2: 1:38

The good news is I know I'm not alone. I know Felicia, you know you have it too, and moms talk about it all the time. So that's a great thing that we're not alone. But it does give me like a little bit of pause or worry, like it's because it's so scary and like what if it doesn't come back? And I don't know. I think the better question maybe to start asking ourselves is doesn't need to, and in some ways I feel like it shouldn't, because our brains have changed so much and they've evolved into something different and something that we need as moms. So you know, I don't know, we both looked a little into it. So, before we get too far in Felicia, do you want to dive into a little bit more about, like, what mom brain is and what can cause it for our mamas?

Speaker 1: 2:20

Yeah, so mom brain is referred to as like the forgetfulness or the brain fog that you experience after having kids, whether that's immediately during your pregnancy where it starts, or if it's after birth. And researchers from the autonomous University of Barcelona has scanned the brains of a couple of women before and after they gave birth and found that there are actual changes to the structure of their brain, mostly surrounding the gray matter, and the fact that it changes for up to two years after you've had a child. And of course that can seem like a long time, but for people that have kids not necessarily like back to back, but within those two years, you know the effects can be seen in a greater capacity. So I know that really affects people, especially moms who have those multiple kids, and you know it's especially because of the hormones and everything directly after birth when things kind of plummet. I know that can be like a huge time for moms that feel like lost or really confused on what's happening, and sometimes the term doesn't exactly come to light and you're not aware of it until a little bit after that. So I know there can be cause for some panic and some people who are like, why can I not remember literally anything, because I know that was me.

Speaker 1: 3:40

I went back to work four months later and I was making mistakes that I have never made before or I was forgetting things that just didn't make sense to me and it was just kind of an overall really confusing time when I was really you know, I was being really hard on myself too, which can definitely happen. I know a lot of people feel that way because, like I said, I was making mistakes I had never made before and I was like what is happening? And, of course, some other people in my you know environment of work they're not going to understand, a lot of them did not understand. So it was just kind of felt like all this pressure and I had no idea what was going on. It was a little bit, you know, it just felt very lonely at the time with all of that.

Speaker 2: 4:20

Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's definitely. You said something that like made me like really think about it. Like people don't understand or don't expect it, because some of the things are super simple. I mean it could be somebody's like your favorite actor's name or something you've done a million times at work. You know, like the presentation I mentioned, it was not something I haven't talked about before. It was nutrition based, like you know, and so same thing. And it's like, well, how did you forget that? And it's like, well, I didn't want to.

Speaker 2: 4:49

You know, it just kind of happens and I don't know, after like reading some of the research that we looked into and some of the things, like I looked into it a bit a while back to kind of calm my nerves because I started thinking like, oh my God, what if this is like I don't know, the start of something like really terrible, and you do want to like be aware of stuff like that and things too, but I don't know when, when you kind of recognize that it is actually like mom brain, yeah, you can almost start to think about it as like a rite of passage, or I did anyways, because you know, like you just talked about, like how everything shifts during pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, postpartum, or brain shift and obviously with sleep deprivation, like all these things, like I don't know, we still we tend, I think, as I was thinking about it as society, to put a lot of emphasis on the physical changes. Like you know, our belly is growing, the baby's growing, our breasts are changing, for this and this is happening and that's happening with birth, and we're just going to snap right back after having the babies and we don't really focus on the change that happens inside of us, like with our brains and we literally do lose some of the gray matter in that like, in that like social cognition space, you know. So maybe we have trouble recalling words or or finishing what we're doing. You know, I don't know if it's ever happened to you but starting the dishwasher and then all of a sudden you're doing laundry and everything's open the cupboards, the fridge, the dishwasher. You know, like it's just one thing after another.

Speaker 2: 6:17

But you know, I think we develop and this is this is overlooked, because I was doing a lot of thinking about this while we were for this episode and what's overlooked is that we gain a new capacity for things, right, so maybe we're a little forgetful about things, but did we stop to think about, like, how, as a mom in particular because that's all I have experience with you have like a new capacity for calm and patience for the babies, and sometimes, you know, we lose that with things. But we also have the ability to know what our babies need when they start to cry and when they get into being a toddler, like we're just hyper aware of our surroundings and dangers to keep them safe, and those things shouldn't go unnoticed to me like that. That you know, that's where the brain space now lies, and that's not a bad thing, you know.

Speaker 1: 7:08

Yeah, no, I completely agree. And when you were just talking about that, I was thinking I was like we may have lost some capacity in memory but we have gained literally a sixth sense and that I've experienced that like extremely. I and I don't love some of these examples because also might not be the you know the best, because my daughter is. We call her a monkey. She likes to climb everything. She will get into anything quicker than you can blank. She's very fast.

Speaker 1: 7:39

So there's been times where and you see these videos on social media too where I'm like looking at something and I look over and she's on the couch and our crutches in that high up. But do I want her to fall back in her head? No, so I, you know I'll go over to the couch and do whatever I'm doing and bring it to the couch and sit on the couch and I just like reach over my hand and grab her as she's falling off the couch. Or I have woken up moments before she cries Like just not even like, oh, what's going on? Just like awake, like at a snap of a finger, awake, and it's just like.

Speaker 1: 8:09

Those kind of things are just like so interesting to me because we gain all of these things like becoming their caregiver and being the person that they run to and something's wrong, or literally being able to catch them right before they fall, and that kind of stuff and our brain, when they have all these hormone changes, or you're completely exhausted and sleep deprived, or you're dealing with postpartum depression or anxiety, your brain is focused on all of these other things that it chooses to lack in the gray matter, which is, you know, memory, whether that's short term or long term, sometimes those can both be affected and you know your brain just chooses to focus on the things that are in some ways like fight or flight or like survival mode, and that's honestly one reason as to why it happens.

Speaker 1: 8:58

And, like I said before, sleep deprivation is a direct cause. You know, just overall exhaustion and the hormones, those are the big things that really cause this. So when you're looking as to like why there's nothing necessarily there's nothing wrong with you and there's nothing to be like very panicked about which you may feel that way, that first starts happening, which is totally normal or at least is very common. But if you are really concerned about things that are like just disappearing from your mind things that you feel like are very important things or it's starting to affect your daily life. Those are things that I would definitely bring to a primary care physician because they can, you know, make a plan or they can talk to you about ways that you can combat it or things that might just generally even if it's tangible might help you remember things. So there's definitely ways that you can help yourself, but if you feel like this is affecting your daily life and you cannot move past it, I would definitely see someone about that, because they might have some better answers for you.

Speaker 2: 9:59

Yeah, I mean, I think there are levels to it, right, like with everything. So if, yeah, obviously, if you're getting well, it's not obvious actually, because sometimes you just don't know what's happening. But like, yeah, if you're, if it's hitting a certain level, you do, you definitely need to get it checked out and get some assistance. But for the most part, I think what a lot of us experience is you know things that happen here and there, or not being able to remember things here and there, finish a task or things like you have to remember the positive. And if you can't remember some of those things, that's when I would go out. Like you know, like I said, you have this mom intuition. Now you can like reach out and just save a baby, like out of nowhere you know, and dads have it too. It's like, honestly, it's one of the most amazing things, but just these heightened instincts to be able to care for and protect the baby. And then, as moms too, or and I think dads experience this too if they become like the default parent or things like that of you know kids appointments when they're out of something food, laundry, you know the clean clothes, things that need to get done. Our families typically don't go without. You know, I'm able to handle a lot of those things, or a lot of those things on my mind that I just dismiss because they're things that, as we think, need to or just should be done right. But a lot of times, like that's a lot of stuff to remember, especially as you start adding more and more kids to the pack, you know. So that's what I mean. I kind of just want moms to know, like, don't forget about the things that you're doing well, and all of the things that you are juggling on a daily basis. We're crushing it out there, you know, and over time I think it'll get better and it'll start to shift again as our children's needs shift.

Speaker 2: 11:41

I mean, you brought up a good point. Like you know, right now your daughter's crawling all over things and you need to. A lot of your attention is making sure she doesn't get hurt. Well, at some point we talked about chapters in different podcast episodes. This is the chapter you're in now and this is the chapter where I'm in now, where certain things aren't important and certain things are, you know, and they're all going to shift a lot in life and our. You know, I think one of the coolest things about our bodies, our brain and our capacity is that we're going to shift and adapt with that, you know. So it's not a bad thing right now if we can't remember seemingly silly things, or maybe you slip up a little bit at work, as you know as long as it's not detrimental, I guess.

Speaker 2: 12:21

But you know there are things you can do for stuff like that. Like, for example, I'm no shame now I carry around a little notebook or I have my phone on me and if there's something that I need to remember, I write it down, no shame. It could be the simplest thing write it down and I do it all the time. Or we've we've been using like a calendar, google calendar or something for a long time now, like my husband and I, but if it's not in the calendar, appointments, whatever, like I, because I know now that I just don't have the capacity, and you know we can couple that with mom brain, sleep deprivation, postpartum anxiety and a little bit of depression, all those things like do yourself a favor, mama, write some stuff down. Like don't don't feel like you have to do it all the time. Like, utilize this tech out there, or that's what I've been trying to do.

Speaker 2: 13:11

I don't know it's been saving my life in terms of, you know, just making things simpler and and it's okay to use these things to help out and help you remember and get things done, because, again, this is just a chapter of life that we're I'm convinced, and based on some of the stuff we've read, that, yeah, our brains are going to shift again because they naturally have to, you know, depending on what your kids need and what you're going to need to kind of continue on. And, of course, you can still do things to kind of promote that, like I know you briefly touched on. You know when you could seek some assistance. Nutrition is key and some of this movement. You know there are things that you could do along the way to just help promote longevity in general and promote some brain health. But I don't know if you had any more tips or suggestions for some of that too, because I know you looked into a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Just, if you're going to like seek help with this and try to make it better, just know that you can't fix it. It's not something that's like 100% like fixable. Your brain, like, like we said, it physically changes. There are things that you just have no control over. But if you want to maybe see if there are things that you can change up, to see if it helps, like Brie said, nourishing your body in ways that are, you know, brain healthy, yeah, brain, healthy foods.

Speaker 1: 14:29

Like foods. You can try to take vitamins that are aimed towards, you know, health for your brain. You can talk to your physician, maybe see a dietitian, and you can, you know, move your body. I know things can be hard. When I first had my daughter it was it felt like impossible, but putting them in the stroller and taking a walk or, if you like, to exercise by yourself, you can always try that. If you're a new mom and you are able to get the help to get more sleep somehow, I would definitely go that route as well, because the more sleep you have, the more that your brain can recoup in ways and you might feel a little better doing that, Doing that and then anything that's more physically trying to help you remember is, of course, doing any of the planners calendars.

Speaker 1: 15:18

Make a family calendar if your partner is up for it, or you can take notes on your phone. Do like memo, voice memos. You can just have a schedule that you can keep track of. If you're able to do a daily schedule and you know that you're going to be doing certain things at certain times, that can always help. But definitely making those thoughts written down or into a voice memo can really help. So any of those tips, if any of those interest you and you're struggling with mom brain, that can definitely help and you can start this all the way back in pregnancy. If you want to get a handle on it then and just kind of maybe get used to it, get the flow down for when you're going to be postpartum.

Speaker 2: 15:57

Oh yeah, I mean, you know I don't know everything to solve it, but we can share our experiences and things too, of what works and what doesn't for us individually and a schedule or planning ahead and this is something that I work with. A lot of people in the nutrition space is planning ahead, like you know. Felicia mentioned like putting in a schedule, writing that out for the week, so that you're kind of prepared of what needs to get done super helpful or that's been helpful for me. I thrive on structure, so that's why maybe that's how it works and that's why I teach that in other other spaces too. But the other thing is reading for me.

Speaker 2: 16:35

I've noticed that when I stop reading for a while, I feel like everything just I don't know is, I'm just not quick and you start reading again and midway through one book I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel like I can just, you know, blaze right through this and everything's like really good and I don't know. It helps you pick up words and things. So that is like number one, getting some exercise and sun. Those are like probably the key things that have helped me a lot personally. So one of those sounds kind of like something you aren't doing or sounds like something that might benefit you, I mean jump on it, because I don't know, there's really no way to kind of get around it, and at some point I'm just saying I think we should have a little bit of fun with it, like here and there I have funny stories.

Speaker 2: 17:18

Because, it really is funny, like, yeah, right, I mean, it's really funny sometimes and we can just kind of embrace it and know that we're just a different version of ourselves and it's more than okay. We have tools that can help us, like, remember the important things or things we need to get done. We can set ourselves up for success. But, like, I don't know, for a while, like I said, I was really down about it or kind of like embarrassed or things. But nah, I'm over it, like it is what it is. Like my kids are doing well, I'm doing well, like overall, and that's what matters. Right Is we're taking care of business and I'm going to have a little bit of fun with it along the way.

Speaker 2: 17:53

Because I'm convinced I mean, I've seen it happen over the course of my life, pre-kids and with kids that there's been many chapters I don't even know what chapter we're on now and it's going to change again. Like, if anything, let's let's stay adaptable We've talked about that too in the past like and I think this range is true here too Embrace the chaos, yeah, embrace it all. Like, just be ready for it.

Speaker 1: 18:15

Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that now, but before I think it was just more or less about the societal pressure that I was feeling to be, you know, well rounded and perfect.

Speaker 1: 18:25

And of course I admire all these moms that have like so many kids and they just seem like they have it all together and things are just I don't have a like a better word just like perfect. And I had one newborn and I felt like everything was falling apart and I think I personally took that as, like you know, just so negative that I wasn't able to even remember that I had something like in the microwave that I was like waiting for or like I was just struggling, like, like I said when I went back to work, and it was just felt like everything was my fault or I wasn't, I wasn't good enough to be the mom that I wanted to be. And I think it's just hard because you you're expected to go home to do that and know everything and do a perfect job while you're doing it. You're supposed to just be perfect and know everything and just go home feeling that way.

Speaker 1: 19:13

And I think that if you feel that way, that that's you know. It's honestly just something that, to me, felt natural. I was supposed to feel that way because I wasn't Living up to what I thought was supposed to be what I was supposed to be doing, I guess, and that was supposed to be that perfect mom.

Speaker 1: 19:29

So, if you feel that way, just know that you're doing Plenty, you're doing more than enough, you are more than enough, especially as a mom, and that, as long as you feel like you're able to, I guess you know Like do all these other things to help yourself and you want to feel better about what's going on and you feel like you're just too forgetful and all this, like this, it's okay because, like you talked about, you have all these other things that your brain just all of a sudden doing for you and for your baby and your family and it's just like a well-rounded thing. You know like you lose some, you win some. So I guess that just kind of what I'm just getting at is that you don't have to feel like you're not enough because something To you feels lacking when you're handling all this other stuff, and other people would be like I can't what. Like you know, like you're doing, what other people feel like they can. It's just like huge cycle, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:25

No, I think it kind of goes with the thing of you always think you're busy right until the next thing kind of happens. But it's amazing what we can juggle it when you become a parent. Just on top of you know Everything that you were juggling before and then some. But it's supposed to be this way. It's supposed to adapt and change and at some point you have to make room for something, right? It's almost like if you're cleaning your house or decluttering or things too, if you get something new, you usually get rid of something old, right, or I don't know. I guess that's what you're supposed to do, I don't know. You know to kind of keep things moving and flowing. So the point is that it happens in our bodies and in our brain too. So right, you know it's not a bad thing. It just embrace it. We're gonna. We're gonna run with it, mom's all right.

Speaker 1: 21:07

So you know, take all of that and just try some different things and see how it goes. But thank you, guys, so much for listening. We hope you get something valuable from our conversation and, if you feel inclined to, please leave a rating or review and definitely share it with another mama if you think that they may be struggling or need to hear this, and Be sure to tag us on Instagram at postpartonconfessions underscore when you're listening.

Speaker 2: 21:30

Yes, we love to hear from you.

Speaker 1: 21:33

All right, bye mama.

Speaker 2: 21:36

Thank you so much for joining us today. We're so excited you're taking this journey with us. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please subscribe, leave a rating, a review or tell another mama about us.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Just stay up to date with postparton confessions and get all the behind-the-scenes content. You can join our email list or follow us on Instagram at postpartonconfessions underscore. All the links are in our show notes. They say it takes a village. Welcome home, mama.