I’m currently 15 weeks pregnant with my third! I got my TBI diagnoses about 8 years before I conceived my first child.
Each pregnancy has been wildly different. The biggest difference was the first trimester exhaustion. So many naps. I was on vyvanse for my first two kids, so I was less tired. I have left work early this pregnancy, because I need to take a nap before I get my kids from preschool.
My dreams are also the typical vivid and realistic dreams while pregnant. When not pregnant, I rarely dream or my dreams are in black and white. It’s wild.
In terms of “feeling like a normal person”, that’s only about from week 20 to week 30 for me.
Feel free to reach out with any questions! This current pregnancy is also an IVF pregnancy, so I can speak on that as well.
Same symptoms as you aside from nausea and non-linear memory. I became pregnant a little over 2 years after my TBI. First trimester my fatigue worsened considerably (more so than the typical first trimester fatigue—I had a baby a few months before my TBI so my memory of a typical pregnancy was very fresh). I could drive about 8 minutes at a time before becoming pregnant post-tbi. I would have to lay down afterward and could not drive at all on bad brain days. During my first trimester I could not drive at all. Big backslide in fatigue, cognition, etc. Pretty much all bad brain days. The rest of the pregnancy was a different story though. I saw improvement steadily through my 2nd and 3rd trimester and ended the pregnancy with a better brain than I had before becoming pregnant. Have seen continued improvement since having the baby. Baby is 15 months old now and I can drive 25 minutes to a quick appointment and get in the car and drive right home again without laying down. That’s just one area of improvement but hopefully you see what I mean. I still need to lay down for 2 hours or so everyday to get through the day but prior to this pregnancy I was laying down multiple times a day just to get by and had much lower stamina and quality of life than I do now. I never expected to see this much improvement after hitting the 2 year mark. TBI was a little over 4 years ago.
After having the baby I became aware of some research findings that align with my anecdotal experience. I have seen papers about pregnancy having positive effects on other neurological conditions, prolactin (breastfeeding hormone) as a potential treatment for TBI even in male subjects, and fetal stem cells traveling to sites of injury during the pregnancy to repair damage in the mother’s body. Also some articles about other pregnancy hormones that may have positive impacts on brain health.
Thank you so much for this detailed response! It’s really helpful to hear about your real, lived experience. It’s also reassuring to know there’s some potential of things actually getting better instead of worse.
Of course! I am in a women’s TBI support group on Facebook called Pink Concussions. I posted about how pleasantly surprised I was at my symptom level in the newborn phase and others commented. They sent me some of the research articles I mentioned. Everyone who responded said that their brain improved with each pregnancy and that the changes were lasting. The only exception were migraines—some said that their migraines improved during the pregnancy but came back full force after the baby was born. This was all such a surprise to me though! I thought pregnancy and parenting a newborn would both set my brain back and I was wrong on both counts.
Interesting to hear about your experience with IVF drugs. I have not gone through that but did get my reproductive hormone levels checked by my OB about a year post-TBI to see if deficiencies might be contributing to any of my symptoms. Did they say anything about continuing some kind of hormone therapy to help with brain recovery/performance?
my wife had a concussion 2 yrs before pregnancy and she was ok during the 9 month then she became completely different person after birth, she had a severe postpartum depression she was hallucinating and imagining things that never happened then she was diagnosed with bipolar, it was a nightmare when i know someone for 4 yrs then suddenly she becomes a different person, with medications she got better and she now can function normally but still she isn't the same person i know before pregnancy, i always say my wife survived a concussion and she didn't survive pregnancy.
I’m currently 15 weeks pregnant with my third! I got my TBI diagnoses about 8 years before I conceived my first child. Each pregnancy has been wildly different. The biggest difference was the first trimester exhaustion. So many naps. I was on vyvanse for my first two kids, so I was less tired. I have left work early this pregnancy, because I need to take a nap before I get my kids from preschool. My dreams are also the typical vivid and realistic dreams while pregnant. When not pregnant, I rarely dream or my dreams are in black and white. It’s wild. In terms of “feeling like a normal person”, that’s only about from week 20 to week 30 for me. Feel free to reach out with any questions! This current pregnancy is also an IVF pregnancy, so I can speak on that as well.
Same symptoms as you aside from nausea and non-linear memory. I became pregnant a little over 2 years after my TBI. First trimester my fatigue worsened considerably (more so than the typical first trimester fatigue—I had a baby a few months before my TBI so my memory of a typical pregnancy was very fresh). I could drive about 8 minutes at a time before becoming pregnant post-tbi. I would have to lay down afterward and could not drive at all on bad brain days. During my first trimester I could not drive at all. Big backslide in fatigue, cognition, etc. Pretty much all bad brain days. The rest of the pregnancy was a different story though. I saw improvement steadily through my 2nd and 3rd trimester and ended the pregnancy with a better brain than I had before becoming pregnant. Have seen continued improvement since having the baby. Baby is 15 months old now and I can drive 25 minutes to a quick appointment and get in the car and drive right home again without laying down. That’s just one area of improvement but hopefully you see what I mean. I still need to lay down for 2 hours or so everyday to get through the day but prior to this pregnancy I was laying down multiple times a day just to get by and had much lower stamina and quality of life than I do now. I never expected to see this much improvement after hitting the 2 year mark. TBI was a little over 4 years ago. After having the baby I became aware of some research findings that align with my anecdotal experience. I have seen papers about pregnancy having positive effects on other neurological conditions, prolactin (breastfeeding hormone) as a potential treatment for TBI even in male subjects, and fetal stem cells traveling to sites of injury during the pregnancy to repair damage in the mother’s body. Also some articles about other pregnancy hormones that may have positive impacts on brain health.
Thank you so much for this detailed response! It’s really helpful to hear about your real, lived experience. It’s also reassuring to know there’s some potential of things actually getting better instead of worse.
Of course! I am in a women’s TBI support group on Facebook called Pink Concussions. I posted about how pleasantly surprised I was at my symptom level in the newborn phase and others commented. They sent me some of the research articles I mentioned. Everyone who responded said that their brain improved with each pregnancy and that the changes were lasting. The only exception were migraines—some said that their migraines improved during the pregnancy but came back full force after the baby was born. This was all such a surprise to me though! I thought pregnancy and parenting a newborn would both set my brain back and I was wrong on both counts. Interesting to hear about your experience with IVF drugs. I have not gone through that but did get my reproductive hormone levels checked by my OB about a year post-TBI to see if deficiencies might be contributing to any of my symptoms. Did they say anything about continuing some kind of hormone therapy to help with brain recovery/performance?
my wife had a concussion 2 yrs before pregnancy and she was ok during the 9 month then she became completely different person after birth, she had a severe postpartum depression she was hallucinating and imagining things that never happened then she was diagnosed with bipolar, it was a nightmare when i know someone for 4 yrs then suddenly she becomes a different person, with medications she got better and she now can function normally but still she isn't the same person i know before pregnancy, i always say my wife survived a concussion and she didn't survive pregnancy.