Congratulations to Isobel Cohen, 33, who has just graduated from Cambridge University with first-class honors in English — taking her exams 28 hours after having a baby. She sat papers on practical criticism and Shakespeare, and the Greek Tragedies in a hospital dressing gown and slippers.
Now that the results are in and baby Beatrice is six weeks old, it is just slightly annoying that Cohen is back-pedaling from her achievement with the standard cliches about “mumnesia.”
“I wonder how I held it together and got through them because now I’m into full-blown ‘nappy brain,’” she said
“While my concentration and memory were not as good as they might have been, I could still do things I needed to do and retain enough information to write decent essays,” she said.
Experts disagree about how childbirth affects intellectual ability. A 2010 study by the US National Institute of Mental Health found that new moms’ brains “bulk up as they cope with the new demands babies bring.”
They scanned the brains of 19 mothers and a comparison of images taken two to four weeks before birth and three to four months after, showed a significant increase in brain growth.
On the other hand, higher levels of estrogen and progesterone in pregnancy are thought to have a negative effect on the parts of the brain governing spatial memory.
What about the benign idiocy we think of as “preg head?” That is most likely down to sleep deprivation, which would not have kicked at the time Cohen sat her papers.
The most interesting part of this story? That her achievement has been reported as an extraordinary mental feat. When what she did physically was a million times more impressive.
“I was sitting in a hospital room in my gown, attached to a catheter. It was painful,” she said.
First in English? No sweat. Sitting on a chair for three hours? Give this person a medal.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is constructing a new counter-stealth radar system on a disputed reef in the South China Sea that would significantly expand its surveillance capabilities in the region, satellite imagery suggests. Analysis by London-based think tank Chatham House suggests China is upgrading its outpost on Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島) on the southwest corner of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building what might be a launching point for an anti-ship missile battery and sophisticated radar system. “By constraining the US ability to operate stealth aircraft, and threaten stealth aircraft, these capabilities in the South China Sea send
HAVANA: Repeated blackouts have left residents of the Cuban capital concerned about food, water supply and the nation’s future, but so far, there have been few protests Maria Elena Cardenas, 76, lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had found on the street. “You know, we Cubans manage the best we can,” she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city. Cuba’s government has spent the last days attempting to get the island’s national grid functioning after repeated island-wide blackouts. Without power, sleep becomes difficult in the heat, food
Botswana is this week holding a presidential election energized by a campaign by one previous head-of-state to unseat his handpicked successor whose first term has seen rising discontent amid a downturn in the diamond-dependent economy. The charismatic Ian Khama dramatically returned from self-exile six weeks ago determined to undo what he has called a “mistake” in handing over in 2018 to Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who seeks re-election tomorrow. While he cannot run as president again having served two terms, Khama has worked his influence and standing to support the opposition in the southern African country of 2.6 million people. “The return of
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has rejected a plan for the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to visit Kyiv due to Guterres’ attendance at this week’s BRICS summit in Russia, a Ukrainian official said on Friday. Kyiv was enraged by Guterres’ appearance at the event in the city of Kazan on Thursday and his handshake with its host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Guterres, who called for a “just peace” in Ukraine at the BRICS event and has repeatedly condemned the invasion, discussed a visit to Ukraine with Zelenskiy when they met in New York
RSS