Being a mom may make you smarter, author says

PHILADELPHIA – You’re a new mom, responsible for your baby’s round-the-clock care, except you feel your brain is operating on half-power.

You can’t remember what you need once you get to the store. You’re hazy on the lyrics of your favorite song.

Science writer Katherine Ellison argues that what seems like an impaired brain to a frazzled mother actually is a brain growing more complex: What people dismiss as women’s work – chores, nurturing, negotiation – combines with a flood of hormones to reshape the brain. After childbirth, women can emerge with a brain that is more efficient, perceptive and resilient.

“You are strengthened in some important capacities, some of which serve you in the working world, and some of which serve you in the parenting world,” says Ellison, a mom and author of “Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter.”

Some evidence comes from two Virginia neuroscientists. They found that moms – at least mom rats – devise faster, better solutions to problems.

In one experiment, they compared two groups of rats, one lactating and the other childless. All were deprived of food, the virgin rats starved twice as long to make them motivated. Both groups were given a chance to hunt crickets. It turned out the bachelorette rats needed nearly five minutes to catch their dinner. The mommy rats? Seventy seconds.

Being a new mother requires attention to task: Change the diaper, make the breakfast, feed the child, wipe the child, wash the tray. Do it again at lunch, and dinner, and the next day and the next and the next. And keep the household running. For all the talk of gender equity, working women still spend twice as much time doing housework as working men. Then add sleep deprivation.

Ellison says mothers develop new levels of emotional intelligence – empathy, self-restraint and conflict resolution skills.