Memory Loss During Pregnancy

摘要

Memory loss in pregnant women could adversely affect their compliance with medical instructions. Pregnant women are a particular target for health education efforts because women are an essential social and economic resource. Therefore, awareness of appropriate strategies for remembering might enable women to overcome any potential loss of efficiency caused by pregnancy.The effect of pregnancy on memory has received little formal scientific study. This study investigated memory during pregnancy using standard psychological procedures. These included explicit and implicit tests of memory. Forty-eight volunteer pregnant women attending for routine antenatal visits, and 19 nonpregnant controls subjectively rated their perceptions of memory impairment and underwent longitudinal objective measure of their recall, recognition, and priming memory. Priming is a type of implicit memory. Priming is the facilitation of performance produced by prior related experience. One way of measuring priming memory is through the completion of word stems with words from a previously presented list. Priming memory has been the object of much study in recent years because it is spared in certain amnesias where recognition and recall are grossly impaired.Of the 48 pregnant women, 39 rated their current memory as being impaired, compared to when they were not pregnant. Only 3 of 19 control subjects perceived their memory to be impaired. Objective tests revealed that pregnant women demonstrated significant impairment in the recall of lists of words, particularly when learning was incidental rather than explicit. Pregnant women were also significantly impaired in measures of priming memory. No significant deficit was found in recognition within the pregnant group. Memory deficits were equivalent in nulliparous and parous women. These deficits were present in all trimesters of pregnancy.The majority of pregnant women perceived that their memory was impaired. This subjective impression was confirmed objectively. The pattern of memory loss in pregnancy is unique compared with other amnesic conditions. This has important implications for the clinician because information imparted to pregnant patients may not be retained as well as might be expected.