{"id":19992,"date":"2026-05-30T01:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/2026\/05\/30\/how-parenting-affects-brain-structure-becoming-a-parent-actually-changes-your-brain-but-does-it-affect-intelligence-what-this-new-study-reveals-may-surprise-you\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T01:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:41:13","slug":"how-parenting-affects-brain-structure-becoming-a-parent-actually-changes-your-brain-but-does-it-affect-intelligence-what-this-new-study-reveals-may-surprise-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/?p=19992","title":{"rendered":"How Parenting Affects Brain Structure: Becoming a parent actually changes your brain, but does it affect intelligence? What this new study reveals may surprise you"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Becoming<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
AI generated image for representation<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Many new mothers have felt forgetfulness, mental exhaustion, or struggle to focus taking the best out of them, especially in the post-partum days. For many years, mothers have described feeling mentally slower after welcoming babies into their lives, and that\u2019s where the concept of \u201cBaby Brain\u201d came into existence. The widely popular term suggested that pregnancy could shrink the brain and negatively affect mental abilities. While researchers studying new parents have found that becoming a parent significantly changes the brain, however, the changes do not have anything to do with cognitive aspects. <\/p>\n

Scientists found something unexpected
<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\n
\"Image:<\/p>\n

Image: Canva<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Researchers from the Monash University\u2019s Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health presented the study <\/a>at the Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Health Summit in Melbourne. The study reportedly followed around 300 new parents and 100 non-parents over two years and examined different aspects of cognitive performance. <\/p>\n

\n
\n

16 Apr 2026 | 10:56<\/p>\n

What\u2019s one parenting habit you\u2019re proud of?<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

According to a report in The Sunday Morning Herald, lead author of the study and Associate Professor Sharna Jamadar says, \u201cNew parents are not actually performing worse than non-parents. They just feel like that.\u201d According to the researchers, parents may feel mentally overwhelmed, but that does not necessarily mean their intelligence has declined.<\/p>\n

Parenthood does change the brain but not in a harmful way
<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\n
\"Image:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The research explained that parenthood causes major structural changes in the brain, especially during pregnancy and after childbirth. But these changes are not signs of brain damage or dysfunction. According to the researchers, these changes actually help mothers adapt better to the emotional and psychological demands of raising a child.<\/p>\n

Do fathers experience these changes too
<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the study also examined fathers and found that not only mothers, but fathers too reported significant feelings of cognitive decline after becoming parents.This suggests that becoming a father can also be emotionally and psychologically overwhelming.<\/p>\n

What may be causing a parent to feel \u201cless intelligent\u201d
<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

According to the study\u2019s lead author Sharna Jamadar, parents may be experiencing the changes because they are sleep-deprived and they go through hormone and brain changes. \u201cYou\u2019ve got all these new things that you need to learn how to do \u2026 and that\u2019s difficult.\u201dRather than becoming \u201cmentally weaker,\u201d researchers believe parents\u2019 brains may actually be reorganising themselves to help them become more emotionally responsive, alert and adaptive caregivers. In the end, the findings challenge the long-held belief that parenthood makes people mentally weaker. While becoming a parent does reshape the brain, researchers say these changes appear to be more adaptive than harmful, and thus do not affect \u201cintelligence\u201d in particular.<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI generated image for representation Many new mothers have felt forgetfulness, mental exhaustion, or struggle to focus taking the best out of them, especially in the post-partum days. For many years, mothers have described feeling mentally slower after welcoming babies into their lives, and that\u2019s where the concept of \u201cBaby Brain\u201d came into existence. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-style"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}