Matrescence - becoming a mother, no ‘bouncing back’ required

Becoming a mother for the first time is a great transition in your life, a rite-of-passage. And not only the first time, but for each time that you become a mother you transition again into a new version of yourself. Each transition is just as significant as the one before. In Western cultures, the focus is largely on the baby that has been born, however the mother is also born each time she gives birth, and this “becoming a mother” piece has largely been left out of our culture entirely. In the same way that we nurture and care for a new baby, we would really do well to remember that the new mother also needs to be nurtured and cared for during this transition.

This critical transition period is Matrescence, and was first coined by an American anthropologist in 1973, Dana Raphael. And although this was first written about in the 1970’s the concept of matrescence has gone completely unacknowledged and unexplored in the medical community, until very recently. There is still so little known about the psychological and physiological effects of becoming a mother - how it affects the brain, the endocrine system, cognition, immunity, the psyche, the microbiome, the sense of self. At a time when a woman is going through a significant rite of passage and is going through massive changes in her physical state, her status within her wider group, her emotional life, her focus, her own identity and in her relationships with everyone around her, she is expected to transition through this stage with ease.

As the author of the recently published book “Matrescence”, Lucy Jones, has alluded to - each time that I write the word “matrescence” a red squiggly line immediately appears below it as if to say - this is not real, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s made up! But it is very real, and the only way to make it even more real is to bring more and more awareness to it, to speak about it to everyone you know. Maybe people will use the argument that they don’t want to scare new mothers with horror stories, or that everyone has to go through it for themselves. But there is a huge difference between scaremongering a new mother and presenting her with a term and an explanation for how she is very likely feeling anyway. And if women were to even grow up hearing about this normal transition that happens on entering motherhood, have evidence based information on how it affects your thoughts and emotions, your hormones, your relationships, your sense of self - how much better would they go on to cope with the reality of motherhood if it happens for them? Instead of getting completely side-swiped by a wave of unknowing, of being lost and totally adrift in what we have come to understand as modern motherhood.

The sense of social isolation that can stem from women being ashamed of what they are experiencing and not realising it is actually normal can even trigger feelings of postnatal depression. There are such complicated feelings that can co-exist - having a sense of worry, disappointment, guilt, competition, frustration, anger or even fear alongside the joy of new motherhood. And it is now thought, according to reproductive psychiatrist Alexandra Sacks, who has reintroduced the concept of matrescence in a New York Times article in 2017, that just even knowing that and being aware of what matrescence is can prevent women from getting ill. If you can watch the TED talk given by Alexandra Sacks in 2018 describing matrescence, it will astonish you.

Talking about matrescence and all the parts of motherhood- including the parts that may carry shame for us - is the only way to help mothers feel less stigmatised and more normal in all aspects of becoming a mother. Of course experiencing matrescence without a support network, and without understanding the complexity of what is happening in your brain as a new mother only adds to feelings of not being enough, not being a “good” mother and a sense of failure that can lead to a diagnosis of postnatal depression.

But the question is how much of maternal mental illness is biological and how much is an understandable response to the design of modern parenthood?

One way to claim back the rite-of-passage of motherhood is to surrender to it, embrace every part of it and honour the transition that you have gone through as a mother and as parents. Planning for this postpartum period and putting the framework in place that allows you to be nurtured as the mother is fundamental to the process of matrescence. It is time to honour this monumental transition and enter into motherhood empowered, nurtured and with the confidence that the changes that are happening are normal and expected.