Study shows having babies make women smarter!

The Columbus Dispatch – Health: “Having a baby helps sharpen mother�s mind, researchers say

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Erica Noonan

THE BOSTON GLOBE

Women with young children have long been saddled with an unflattering stereotype � frazzled, dull-witted, incompetent and preoccupied with domestic affairs.

The derogatory cliches vary from ��maternal amnesia’ in medical circles to the colloquial ��placenta brain.’

Yet a new body of research � still involving mostly animals � is fueling the idea that parenthood might rewire the brain, making mothers (and involved fathers) more perceptive, efficient, competitive and even socially aware. And, according to sociological studies, most symptoms of ��mommy brain’ might be attributed as much to stress and exhaustion as to biology.

Comparing the brain of a non-mother to that of a mother is ��like comparing a tree in the winter to one in full bloom in the spring, when it is much fuller and richer,’ said University of Richmond (Va.) neuroscientist Craig Kinsley, a leading researcher in the field.

The transformation of pregnancy, labor and infant care ��enables the brain to process information much differently than it did before.’

Researchers such as Kinsley have found that, from a few weeks after a birth, the cognitive abilities of a female rat � particularly smell and sight � start to expand.

Rats nursing litters of pups, Kinsley said, find and catch prey three times as quickly as virgin rats do.

His analysis of brain tissue from rats in late pregnancy shows that neural pathways are essentially ��remapped.’

The changes, according to scientists, probably stem partly from the experience of pregnancy and labor, when higher levels of est”