comparison of cognitive function in different trimesters of pregnancy

Background: although pregnancy is a normal function in women, it is considered as a stressful experience which is associated with many psychological and physical changes in pregnant women.objectives: this study aims to investigate and compare cognitive function in different trimesters of pregnancy.materials & methods: this was a longitudinal cohort study. participants were 76 pregnantwomen with a mean age of 30.09±6.23 years referred to al-zahra hospital in rasht, iran during 2019-2020. participants were assessed in three trimesters of pregnancy using the wechsler memory scale (wms) and mini-mental state exam (mmse). the multilevel mixed-effects linear regression and repeated measures anova were used for data analysis. all analyses were done in spss software v. 19 and stata v. 14.results: the mean score of wms was significantly lower in the third trimester (84.95±12.07) than in the first and second trimesters (89.34±13.13 and 88.72±13.24, respectively) (p=0.001). the results of linear regression analysis showed no significant difference in mmse score between different trimesters of pregnancy (p>0.05), while the wms score was significantly different between different pregnancy trimesters; the change in wms score was statistically significant only in the third trimester (p= 0.04).conclusion: no impairment in general cognitive function occur during pregnancy, but memory impairment may occur. in the third trimester, pregnant women have the poorest memory function.