Matrescence: Are We Finally Understanding Motherhood?

You may have heard the term ‘matrescence’. This word was first quoted by anthropologist, Dana Raphael, in 1973. However, it was not really picked up until 2023 when a journalist, Lucy Jones, published her book: ‘Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood’. If you have not read it, I really recommend it! 

What Is Matrescence?

How did you feel when you became a mum? Did you maybe feel elated, frightened, guilty, judged, angry, stretched, and everything in between? Did you maybe feel inadequate because you had all those feelings but were afraid to voice them? If this relates to your experience, welcome to the club! You are not alone. The good news is that we finally have a word to describe this complex transition of becoming a mother: Matrescence.  

The bad news is that we don’t really understand the process of matrescence. If you think about it, there are thousands of books and millions of articles published on pregnancy, but the reality is that they are not focused on the mother but on the baby. The mother is only referred to if her actions and emotions affect the baby.  

In many countries, there is a baby shower to mark the birth of the baby but there is no acknowledgment of the transition that the woman is going through. Becoming a mother is the biggest transition women go through in their lifetime, yet in the Western world, we do not celebrate nor do we acknowledge it. Not only are new mothers not celebrated, but they are expected to ‘bounce back’ and ‘go back to their old self’ as soon as possible. It is almost as if becoming a mother is something to hide. As if the physical, cognitive, and identity changes that becoming a mother carry, should not only not be embraced but buried under the carpet.

Is This a Problem?

Yes, it is. We live in a society where it is only OK to talk about the good things of motherhood. But what about the things that are not so good? What about the guilt, the intrusive thoughts, the shame, the boredom, the competition, the judgement, or the anger that mothers also feel?  

Not being open about our emotions around motherhood may be one of the reasons why one in five pregnant and new mothers experience mental health issues ⁽¹⁾, ranging from postnatal depression to maternal psychosis. This type of isolation may be a trigger for these mental health issues. To make it worse, many of these women never seek help for fear of being judged and stigmatized.  

The sad reality is that we know very little about why so many women experience these mental health issues because we know very little about women’s health in general, and even less about maternal health. I was shocked when I learnt that the first textbook ⁽²⁾ about maternal mental health was only published in 2022.  

What Are the Changes that Women Go Through During Matrescence? 

Matrescence refers to the process of becoming a mother. It includes the physical, hormonal, neurobiological, and identity changes that women go through when they become mothers.  

Few areas in psychology have developed as slowly as theory and research about mothers and the transition to motherhood. The first studies on the maternal brain only started in the 2010s. This means that we are only starting to understand the maternal brain and how life-altering the transition to motherhood is. Let me explain you briefly what the few neuroscience studies on the maternal brain are finding.  

Some studies have compared the brain of pregnant or first-time mums with those of women who have never had kids. In 2017, researcher Hoekzema ⁽³⁾ and her colleagues in Barcelona, found that the grey matter of mothers’ brain reduced in size, to make the brain more efficient to take care of the baby. A few years later (2022), they published another study ⁽⁴⁾ and fascinatingly they found that because of the changes to the brain, new mothers developed a new perception of themselves. They developed a new sense of identity when they become mothers. A study with a similar methodology was published in 2023 by Orchard ⁽⁵⁾ and colleagues at Yale University. They found that mothers’ brains were more efficient, responsive, and flexible than the brain of women who had never been mothers.  

In their lab in Madrid, Carmona ⁽⁶⁾ and her colleagues, took a different approach and compared the brain of mothers with the brain of teenagers. They found that the magnitude and type of changes in the brain that happen during motherhood and adolescence are very similar. Both periods are also very sensitive and prone to the development of mental disorders. Both periods are times of incredible plasticity for the brain. The big difference is whereas the adolescence brain has been studied since the 1990s, research on the maternal brain only started in the 2010s.  

A different approach was yet again taken by Pritschet ⁽⁷⁾ and her colleagues in a study published at the time of this writing (September 2024). They scanned the brain of one woman repeatedly over two years, starting three weeks before she became pregnant until two years after she gave birth. They found changes across all areas of the brain, allowing the brain to become more specialised in preparation for motherhood.  

There Are Two Important Conclusions From These Studies

1. We should stop talking about the ‘mum brain’ in a pejorative ⁽⁸⁾ way. Instead, we should start talking about ‘mum brain’ as a streamlined, specialized, and effective brain structure that equips women to take care of their baby and to deal with the demands of the new stage of their life more resourcefully.  

2. Research on the maternal brain will help us understand the high prevalence of postpartum mental disorders amongst mothers.  

Do Fathers Go Through ‘Patrescence’?

Scientists are only starting to investigate the ‘dad brain’. And it seems that their brain ⁽⁹⁾ changes in a similar way as that of new mothers. Essentially, it seems that the brain of mothers and fathers becomes more streamlined to what it needs to do: care for the baby.  

However, it seems that these changes may take longer for fathers than to mothers. Partly, because without the experience of pregnancy, changes depend more on how connected the father feels with the baby. When a baby and their caregiver, touch each other, look into each other’s eyes, or smell each other, their brainwaves become synchronized.  

Interestingly, a study ⁽¹⁰⁾ published early this year, also shows that new fathers are at higher risk of experiencing mental health issues. This suggests that caregiving may come at a cost.   

What About Non-Birthing Parents?

As I mentioned, the concept of ‘matrescence’ was first quoted by Dana Raphael. She only included biological mothers. Later, it was expanded by Dr Aurélie Athan to include those women who become mothers through surrogacy or adoption.  

However, to date and as far as I know, no study has examined the matrescence of those are not biological parents. 

A Final Word

Let’s remember that when a baby is born, a mother is also born. And she needs care as well. Research on the maternal brain tells us that matrescence is a particularly sensitive period when women are more likely to experience mental health issues.  

Do you know what protects new mothers against mental illness? Feeling supported. So, let’s start supporting each other. It’s about time.  

If you want to find out more about matrescence, Dr Alexandra Sacks TED talk is excellent!  

If you are struggling from your own matrescence, please do get in touch. Our REC Parenting therapists are here to support you.  

Love,  

Ana 

Dr Ana Aznar 

References

⁽¹⁾ L. Van den Branden, N. Van de Craen, L. Van Leugenhaege, R. Bleijenbergh, E. Mestdagh, O. Timmermans, B. Van Rompaey, Y.J. Kuipers, On cloud nine? Maternal emotional wellbeing six weeks up to one year postpartum – A cross-sectional study, Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare (2023), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.srhc.2023.100856 

⁽²⁾ Hutner et al. (eds), Textbook of Women’s Reproductive Mental Health (APA, 2022).

⁽³⁾ Hoekzema, E., Barba-Müller, E., Pozzobon, C., Picado, M., Lucco, F., García-García, D., … & Vilarroya, O. (2017). Pregnancy leads to long-lasting changes in human brain structure. Nature neuroscience, 20(2), 287-296. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4458

⁽⁴⁾ Hoekzema, E., van Steenbergen, H., Straathof, M., Beekmans, A., Freund, I. M., Pouwels, P. J., & Crone, E. A. (2022). Mapping the effects of pregnancy on resting state brain activity, white matter microstructure, neural metabolite concentrations and grey matter architecture. Nature Communications, 13(1), 6931. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4458

⁽⁵⁾ Orchard, E. R., Voigt, K., Chopra, S., Thapa, T., Ward, P. G., Egan, G. F., & Jamadar, S. D. (2023). The maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers. Scientific reports, 13(1), 4719. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31696-4

⁽⁶⁾ Carmona, S., Martínez‐García, M., Paternina‐Die, M., Barba‐Müller, E., Wierenga, L. M., Alemán‐Gómez, Y., … & Hoekzema, E. (2019). Pregnancy and adolescence entail similar neuroanatomical adaptations: A comparative analysis of cerebral morphometric changes. Human brain mapping, 40(7), 2143-2152. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.24513

⁽⁷⁾ Pritschet, L., Taylor, C. M., Cossio, D., Faskowitz, J., Santander, T., Handwerker, D. A., … & Jacobs, E. G. (2024). Neuroanatomical changes observed over the course of a human pregnancy. Nature Neuroscience, 1-8.

⁽⁸⁾ Orchard ER, Ward PGD, Egan GF, Jamadar SD. Evidence of Subjective, But Not Objective, Cognitive Deficit in New Mothers at 1-Year Postpartum. J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2022 Aug;31(8):1087-1096. doi: 10.1089/jwh.2021.0441. PMID: 35980243

⁽⁹⁾ Paternina-Die M, Martínez-García M, Pretus C, Hoekzema E, Barba-Müller E, Martín de Blas D, Pozzobon C, Ballesteros A, Vilarroya Ó, Desco M, Carmona S. The Paternal Transition Entails Neuroanatomic Adaptations that are Associated with the Father’s Brain Response to his Infant Cues. Cereb Cortex Commun. 2020 Nov 4;1(1). https://doi.org/10.1093%2Ftexcom%2Ftgaa082

⁽¹⁰⁾ Darby Saxbe, Magdalena Martínez-García, Cortical volume reductions in men transitioning to first-time fatherhood reflect both parenting engagement and mental health risk, Cerebral Cortex, Volume 34, Issue 4, April 2024, bhae126, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhae126