Pregnancy can actually shrink parts of a woman's brain, study finds!

For decades, pregnant women’s forgetfulness and ditzyness have been labelled ‘pregnancy brain’. The momiker is casually thrown around to describe what is a life-altering experience and a new mother’s lack of sharpness has always been attributed to lack of sleep and exhaustion. However, new research has shown that pregnancy does actually, physically, alter the brain!The fascinating study has revealed that pregnancy can shrink grey matter in more than 80% of a woman’s brain, leaving lasting "permanent etchings" in the brain.Led by Emily Jacobs, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), the study examined the brain of Liz Chrastil, a neuroscientist from UC Irvine, who volunteered for over two dozen MRI scans throughout her pregnancy and two years postpartum.