Is It Mom Brain? Or Is It Actually ADHD?

Dr. Sasha Hamdani is a Kansas City, Missouri-based board-certified psychiatrist with deep experience in ADHD and executive function disorders. She shares medically accurate, evidence-based and accessible information through her Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts. She’s the author of Self-Care for People with ADHD as well as her newest release, Too Sensitive: Rejection, Resilience and the Science of Feeling Deeply, available now.

When I connected with Dr. Hamdani, it was one of the first questions I posed: Am I the only one noticing a sudden uptick in conversation around this diagnosis? “A thousand times, yes, I am absolutely seeing more of this,” she confirmed. To the credit of moms everywhere, there are also several reasons for the sudden shift.

“For a long time, ADHD research and diagnosis were centered around the hyperactive little boy presentation,” Dr. Hamdani explains. “This meant that many girls who were inattentive, perfectionistic, anxious or internally overwhelmed were missed.”

Those girls became women, entered motherhood, then suddenly the demands on executive function became nonstop, she adds. “Schedules, meals, school forms, appointments, emotional labor, sleep deprivation and constant interruptions—it all came at once. Often times, moms recognize symptoms in themselves after their child is diagnosed, which makes sense because ADHD is highly genetic.”

This is another factor that has made identification for moms so tough: Telltale symptoms of ADHD don’t really exist. Per Dr. Hamdani, to rule in ADHD, you first have to rule out everything else. There’s burnout, anxiety and depression, the load of motherhood itself. “That said, if we’re seeing chronic forgetfulness, difficulty starting or finishing tasks, losing things, running late despite trying, emotional reactivity, rejection sensitivity, restlessness, impulsive spending and feeling like daily life requires much more effort than it seems for other people, we’re considering ADHD.”

This is also where the distinction lies: In women, ADHD often looks less like disruptive hyperactivity and more like internal chaos: anxiety, mental clutter, shame and exhaustion from overcompensating. “I would encourage moms to ask their PCP or therapist, ‘Could this be ADHD, and can I be referred for a full evaluation?’” Dr. Hamdani says. (FYI, an official diagnosis requires a clinical assessment showing symptoms began in childhood, occur across more than one setting, cause impairment and are not better explained by something else like untreated anxiety, depression, trauma, sleep deprivation, thyroid issues or substance use. Thorough evaluations also include a developmental history, current symptom review, impairment assessment and often standardized rating scales, Dr. Hamdani explains.)

Mom brain—defined as a temporary condition that hits during pregnancy and early parenthood that involves mental fog, forgetfulness and trouble focusing—is a term that’s rooted in the biological and often hurled about. But ADHD is not that.

“This is such an important distinction because motherhood itself is incredibly demanding, and ‘mom brain’ is real in the sense that sleep disruption, stress, hormonal changes and the mental load can absolutely affect memory and focus,” Dr. Hamdani says. “The difference with ADHD is that the pattern is present even before motherhood, even if it was masked or compensated for earlier.” Ask yourself: Did you struggle with procrastination, disorganization, emotional overwhelm and focus issues before you had kids? If the answer is, “Yes, but I could manage until motherhood made it impossible,” that points more toward ADHD. “Parenting may reveal ADHD,” says Dr. Hamdani, “but it does not create it from nowhere.”

If you have seen a physician, treatment can include medication, therapy, ADHD coaching, parent support, sleep stabilization, exercise—the options are vast. If you aren’t able to see a doctor, Dr. Hamdani suggests a variety of tactics—everything from practical systems like shared calendars, visual reminders, simplified routines, body doubling (a productivity strategy where another person is present while you complete a task to help you stay on point) and lowering the number of decisions you have to make every day. “For moms, I especially emphasize externalizing everything because your brain should not have to hold the grocery list, school schedule, emotional climate of the house and your own work deadlines all at once,” she adds. A less-discussed aspect is taking time to treat the shame because many women have spent years interpreting ADHD symptoms as a personal failure. “The goal is not to become a perfectly organized mother; it is to build enough support that your brain can function with less friction and more self-trust,” Dr. Hamdani says.

Chalk it up to one of the plus sides of social media: It’s played a huge role in raising awareness. “Women are finally hearing descriptions of ADHD that sound like their actual lives,” Dr. Hamdani says. We are also living in a moment where people are willing to talk—not just about their mental health, but about burnout, neurodivergence and the invisible labor of motherhood. That openness is powerful, but it also makes clinical nuance important. “Awareness should be a doorway to accurate evaluation, not a replacement for it,” she says.