Updated October 7, 2026, 8:25 a.m. ET
Do women’s brains really change when they become mothers?
Yes, says neuroscientist Susana Carmona. But the changes actually start before giving birth.
Carmona has been studying women’s brains for years in Spain, where she lives, and has discovered that a woman’s brain actually changes during pregnancy.
“This is a new area, but very promising because we have discovered very intense changes associated with gestational hormones, which appear to be important for maternal well-being,” Carmona told USA TODAY. She recently published a book titled “A Mother’s Brain: The New Science of the Neuro-Maternal Revolution” about her findings.
Women often talk about “pregnancy brain” or “mommy brain” during pregnancy and in the years that follow when raising young children. But more recently, mothers, psychologists, and maternal mental health advocates have advanced the idea of matrescence, or that women actually go through a “second puberty” when they become mothers. According to experts, women’s brains undergo the same pruning process during matrescence as those of adolescent girls during puberty.
“Matrescence is literally the process of becoming a mother. It’s the physical, psychological, emotional and social transformation that a woman goes through when she becomes a mom,” Michelle Battersby, president of Peanut, a social networking app for moms, told USA TODAY. “And it’s also the most profound neurological change an adult human brain can experience.”
Carmona agrees and adds that the changes can last a woman’s entire life and even during multiple pregnancies.
“Pregnancy changes your brain in a more intense and dynamic way than during adolescence,” says Carmona.
What happens to the brain during pregnancy?
So, what actually happens in the brain during pregnancy? Carmona says a pregnant mother’s cerebral cortex shrinks during pregnancy, much like it does during puberty, but that’s not a bad thing.
“We tested whether these decreases were associated with cognitive performance. We found no association,” she says.
After the volume decreases during pregnancy, she says, the mother’s gray matter increases slightly after delivery but does not reach preconception levels. According to her, new pathways created by the mother’s brain during pregnancy and matrescence neuroplasticity help mothers respond to their child’s stimuli.
New mothers learn a lot “at the speed of light” during those first days and months of parenthood, Carmona says, about keeping “a human being alive.”
While gestational mothers see much more pronounced brain changes, Carmona says, non-gestational parents — people who become parents through surrogacy or adoption, and other non-surrogate parents — also experience matrescence.
“These changes appear to make maternal care easier. But they are neither necessary nor sufficient,” adds Carmona. “Of course, you can access maternal care in other ways. We don’t need a brain image to say fathers are perfect caregivers, adoptive mothers are wonderful caregivers.”
Is “mommy brain” real?
Matrescence and brain changes experienced by pregnant women are much more than “mommy brain,” Carmona says.
Because brain changes aren’t visible, she says, the negative narrative of “mommy brain” — and women insisting that their memory is no longer what it was before becoming a parent — persists. But the “pregnancy brain” effect has many layers.
Physically, Carmona says, new mothers are exhausted because gestation and breastfeeding are “very metabolically demanding,” she says, likening those demands to running a marathon. Plus, new parents don’t get much sleep. “If you don’t sleep, your memory is going to be worse,” whether you’re a parent or not.
Psychologically, infant stimuli are particularly powerful for mothers during the first months. Everything their babies do “distracts their attention,” she says. “It’s like this software is running in the background all the time.”
“So it’s not that we’re reducing capacity,” she said. “The baby eats half of it during the first months.”
Parents’ cognitive performance does not decline, she says. It’s actually the opposite. “The challenges that come with motherhood are like a sudoku,” she says.
The brain changes that occur during pregnancy and early parenthood are a superpower, Carmona says. But she warns pregnant women that neuroplasticity can also lead to vulnerabilities if they have bad birth experiences, lack social support, or experience financial or emotional stress.
“That’s the other side of the coin,” she says, and is why “we have a higher incidence of mental health disorders” among new mothers.
She hopes that understanding the brain changes women experience during pregnancy will help moms give themselves some grace.
“It kind of lets you detach a little bit,” she says. “Okay, that’s what’s happening. It’s pretty universal.”
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the care economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Contact Madeline at memitchell@usatoday.com And @maddiemitch_ on X.
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