GUEST BLOG: Matrescence – What is it and why do you need to know about it?
By Emma Snelgar | Integrative Birth Therapist, Registered Nurse & Midwife
The term Matrescence was first coined in 1973 by American anthropologist Dana Raphael to describe the process a woman goes through in becoming a mother (She also created the term Doula, which took off - yet matrescence at that time did not).
It wasn’t until 2008 when Dr Aurelie Athan was researching early motherhood that she found this body of work and expanded upon it. She was finding so many new mothers who came into her clinic were struggling with their transition to motherhood, and could find very
little information on what it was that she was seeing. These women were going through some level of emotional distress, yet she knew it wasn’t PND, it was something different.
When she found this early work of Dana Raphael's, she knew that she had found something important.
Matrescence, like adolescence.
Like how adolescence encapsulates the transition from child to adult, matrescence describes the transition a woman goes through when she becomes a mother. It encompasses the changes a woman goes through at all levels – physical, hormonal, emotional, social, spiritual and cultural.
What is so great about matrescence is that it describes the experience in a nonpathological way – i.e. there is nothing wrong with you, it is not all in your head, and you are going through something. By acknowledging that matrescence is an important transition that all mothers go through, it also acknowledges the importance of this period. It highlights the
extra support and understanding that new mothers need.
We don’t expect teenagers to have it all figured out straight away the moment a child turns 13, we give them years of support and understanding, guidance and encouragement as they navigate their way to their new, adult selves. So why do we expect mothers to be able to have it all figured out, almost straight away? Why isn’t there more support available as they navigate this period of time?
Change is slowly happening, and word is spreading.
In May of 2021, matrescence was recognised and added to the Cambridge Dictionary. They define it as “The process of becoming a mother: those physical, psychological and emotional changes you go through after the birth of your child.”
Which it is at an individual level, but also there are elements that encompass a societal level as well (the cultural and social changes, eg within the workplace how attitudes shift when women become mothers). They also acknowledge in their definition how it has been largely unexplored in the medical community – which is no surprise given how little support there is for new mothers.
The extent of support (generally) for mothers as it stands currently is the 6 week newborn check with your GP and subsequent child health appointments – which generally focus on how baby is feeding and developing with very little focus on the mother.
If a mum does express that she is having a hard time in these appointments, she is generally given a questionnaire to complete and is either referred to a psych or told to leave her baby to cry so she can get more sleep**. There is very little understanding in the wider medical community on supporting new mothers.
*A referral to a psych can be helpful, but can also be a barrier for many women who at their core know that what they are going through is not rooted in a psychological issue but don’t know *quite* what it is - which is why knowing about matrescence is so important!
Society as a whole can oftentimes confuse a lack of support with actual psychological issues (which yes – are important and there is a genuine need for this but not for every mother). Think - “oh she’s not coping very well, is she?” vs “oh, she’s not getting very much support, is she?”; There’s a big, important difference there.
Also, for a new mother who is struggling, being told to leave your baby to cry is not helpful either as it doesn’t address the core issue and is a symptom again of the lack of support available to new mothers (and goes against biologically normal infant behaviour, and is another example of us being told to ignore our maternal instincts.. BUT that is not this conversation as we still are as a whole grossly unsupported within our social structures and the it can often seem that this is the only answer to extreme sleep deprivation, which compounds everything and makes everything harder)**
Becoming a mother can come with challenges that we can’t expect, and that no-one warns us about. It can feel like we have lost our sense of self, and our whole identity changes. It can feel like we split in two and we can grieve our old selves and miss our old life – e.g. the freedoms we used to have, whilst simultaneously loving the shit out of our babies. Hence we can feel like we are going a bit crazy and it can be hard to reconcile within ourselves. Add in all the external pressures of advice coming at you from all angles and the “shoulds” which are often contradictory and go against our instinct, and we can feel like failures, PLUS throw in that one in three women experience birth trauma and so many have our own unhealed traumas, which birth and motherhood can bring up, it can make it an even harder
place from which to start our own motherhood journeys.
Words create worlds, and by giving it a name it acknowledges that this is actually thing, and gives us a whole new framework in which to view mums and motherhood.
It becomes a beautiful permission to take some time to actually focus on ourselves and to re-evaluate what is important to us, what our values and beliefs are and what no longer serves us.
It is an acknowledgement that we are supposed to change, to grow and expand as we grow into our motherhood role.
Changing as a person, particularly as we become mothers has been vilified for so long, that we can be made to feel like there is something wrong with us if we do so. Therefore understanding matrescence helps us to embrace the opportunity presented to deeply explore these changes.
This is why understanding matrescence is important, why we should all know about it, and why it is slowly gaining momentum.
For too long women have been expected to fit into this ‘mans world’ – the patriarchal culture in which we live in, where mothers have been left unsupported and disempowered. This is another piece of the puzzle for women to come back to themselves and empower themselves, and hopefully to feel free to raise our children in a way that feels aligned and
empowered, in the hope that our children never have to know this struggle.
If you would like some support in this, please find me at