Memory and mood changes in pregnancy: a qualitative content analysis of women’s first-hand accounts

ABSTRACT

Objective

This qualitative study aimed to explore how pregnant women and new mothers self-report changes to their mood and memory during pregnancy.

Background

Researchers have investigated the various changes that women report throughout their pregnancy. Despite this evidence base, there is a notable lack of studies that take a qualitative approach to understanding how pregnant women and women in the postpartum period experience memory and mood changes through their pregnancy.

Method

The present study involved a qualitative content analysis of women’s first-hand accounts. Of the 423 participants who responded, 118 participants provided textual responses to questions about their memory and 288 participants provided textual responses to questions about their mood. Data were collected online via a free-text survey and analysed using both deductive inductive open coding.

Results

A qualitative content analysis generated four overall categories: two typologies of self-reported memory changes in pregnancy (‘short-term memory lapses’ and ‘chronic memory fog’) and two typologies of self-reported mood changes (‘mood instability and constant change’ and ‘low mood and parenting anxiety’).

Conclusion

These typologies represent unique profiles of the memory and mood changes that women experience during pregnancy and serve to accompany and expand the quantitative literature, which documents the changes women experience during pregnancy.

KEYWORDS:

• Pregnancy
• baby brain
• maternal mental health
• memory changes

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following people for their assistance with data collection of the studies from which the present data is sourced: Sheli Algranti, Millie Morgan, Anya Shore, Alice Gilman, Bethan Newton, Ruby Downey-Brown, Harriet Dooley, Jude Paul, Mia Beadsworth, Megan Cliffe, Jacob Cooper, Emma Donaghy, Eve Eyles-Smith, Sophie Gerrard, Alice Harding, Katie Innes, Charlotte Lowry, Grace Nutman and Victoria Morgan. We would also like to thank Lucy Prodgers, and Dr. Alex Barraclough-Brady for their helpful comments on the analysis of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data are available here: https://osf.io/k6xq9/

Ethical approval statement

Ethical approval was obtained from the local School of Psychology Ethics Committee.