Many people don’t actually know that ‘baby brain’ is actually a true side effect of pregnancy and not just an excuse used by new mothers. It has now been revealed that new mothers can suffer with ‘baby brain’ four months after birth.
A study has revealed new mothers suffer from baby brain and excessive tiredness 16 weeks after giving birth and have warned about the danger of women returning to work too quickly after giving birth.
Researchers found new mothers were still excessively sleepy 18 weeks after having their baby.
They urged mew mums to be cautious about returning to work too quickly, after the study found one in two were still excessively sleepy four months after giving birth.
Dr Ashleigh Filtness, of Queensland University of Technology in Australia, studied the sleep patterns and tiredness in women after giving birth and found despite new mums recording stable night sleep times at 18 weeks, they continued to report being excessively tired.
The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, followed 33 healthy new Australian mums who recorded their sleep patterns after giving birth in 15 minute increments during weeks six, 12 and 18.
Dr Filtness said: “Sleep disruption strongly influences daytime function, with sleepiness recognised as a risk-factor for people performing critical and dangerous tasks.”
She said the study had “significant implications” for decisions-makers about when women should return to work.
Dr Filtness said: “This brings into question whether four months parental leave is sufficient to ensure daytime sleepiness has diminished to a manageable level before returning to work.
“It is important when developing regulations for parental leave entitlements that policy makers take into account the high prevalence of excessive daytime sleepiness experienced by new mothers.
“With the birth of every baby the new mother must adjust to the demands of parenting and one aspect of that is to remain functional while experiencing potentially severe sleep disruption.
“To put this into context, the assessment tool used to determine new mums’ sleepiness is also used by GPs to determine clinically relevant levels of sleepiness.
“If any other otherwise healthy person presented to a doctor with this degree of sleepiness they would likely have been offered advice regarding implications for daytime impairment including the impact on sustaining attention and decision making.”
Dr Filtness said the study also found while new mums were still waking on average twice a night to attend to their babies at six, 12 and 18 weeks – their total sleep time was about seven hours and 20 minutes.
She said Australian new mothers actually slept more than the average American worker (six hours and 53 minutes).
Dr Filtness added: “While post-partum women experienced disturbed sleep, they didn’t necessarily experience total reduced sleep time.
“What we found was that inevitably, new mothers will wake in the night to attend to their infant and the number of times they wake remains consistent during the first 18 post-partum weeks.
“Sleep disruption reduced over time and it appears this was driven by a reduction in the time it took for new mums to return to sleep, suggesting improved efficiency by mothers at settling their infant or the development of the infant’s circadian rhythm.
“These findings highlight the importance of sleep quality as opposed to sleep quantity, especially during the first 12 weeks.
“Soon-to-be mums should be aware of the importance of their own sleep and consider how they are going to preserve their own sleep during the first few months of caring for a baby.”