What is matrescence?
The term every parent - and every non-parent - should know about
In almost every psychology workshop we deliver for expectant or new parents, we ask the audience, “who here has heard the term ‘matrescence’ before?”
Responses vary - it’s hard to put an estimate on the proportion who have vs those who have not.
And to be honest our gauge feels a bit faulty on this! Because initially when we started doing this work with expectant and new parents, we would find ourselves pleasantly surprised whenever anyone raised their hand, as we celebrated in the fact that more and more people were becoming aware of this truly enlightening and important concept.
But after a while, as we became so immersed in this work and in the world of new parenthood, we started to notice ourselves expecting people to know all about matrescence, sometimes even forgetting or neglecting to properly define it.
And the truth is, like many people we find ourselves heavily influenced by our little algorithm bubble. So while we (and perhaps some of you) find ourselves absorbed on each scroll with information about motherhood, and the transition to motherhood, and what the concept of ‘matrescence’ has to do with all of that - the fact is that outside of that bubble, it is not a widely understood term.
So today on Substack we are going to break it down.
If you are learning about this for the first time, we hope that you find this information as valuable as we did when we first learned about it.
If this is all stuff you already knew, then we have a challenge for you:
Share this information with someone who does not know it yet.
Because the world needs to know!
Matrescence is formally defined in the Cambridge dictionary as:
“the process of becoming a mother:
Those physical, psychological and emotional changes you go through after the birth of your child now have a name: matrescence.”
The term was first coined by Dana Raphael in the 1970s but has more recently been revived by researchers such as Dr. Aurelie Athan, who has noted that the concept of matrescence allows us to understand the transition to motherhood far more holistically than traditional medical or psychiatric models of perinatal mental health: “There exists an urgent need for a strengths-based framework that studies the normative aspects of a mother’s self-development and acknowledges both the positive and negative outcomes with equal consideration”1
As clinicians who work primarily with mothers, we think that the central value of the concept of matrescence from a clinical point of view is this:
It validates an experience that can be so hard to put into language.
The change, the transition, the shift that is not all good but not all bad; not all happy but not all sad; not all blissful but not all dark; not all scary but not all comforting. Matrescence makes space for the emotional turmoil that can so often exist in that ambivalence as we grow into a changing part of ourselves and perhaps struggle to answer the question, “How are you finding it?” in any way that feels true or accurate.
It gives life to what is such a deeply felt experience, and most importantly it allows for it to be both deeply personal and individualised, as well as deeply universal and shared.
Like any other lived human process, our experience of matrescence will be shaped by a complex combination of our inborn temperment, our biology, our history, our life experiences, our fertility experiences, our environment (both early and current), our material resources, our relationships, our ways of learning and coping, the social and cultural systems we exist within, and probably much more.
The other element of matrescence that is so fascinating and crucial to us is the way that it helps us to frame the very real brain changes that occur during pregnancy and new parenthood. A neural re-organisation occurs during pregnancy at both a structural and functional level within the brain.2 Researchers have theorised that these brain changes may be adaptive in supporting preparation for motherhood, however they also highlight the potential link that such significant changes may have in relation to emotional regulation and mental health.3
Matrescence is often likened to adolescence, with comparisons made between the vast physical, emotional, psychological, and even neurological changes4 which occur during both life stages. The point that is often made by researchers and commentators is that while we have developed, over time, a universal societal understanding of these challenges of adolescence, we are earlier on in our acknowledgement of the way these factors play out in motherhood.
If we want society to understand matrescence, in our opinion we need to stop only talking about it with other mothers and parents. We need to talk about it at all intersections of society.
This might start small - maybe all of those reading this (and writing it!) could commit to sprinkling the word into a conversation? Maybe we could share a post that we see about it on our social media?
Or if that all feels like too much right now, maybe we could just take some time and space to reflect on our own matrescence. What has it looked and felt like? In what ways does it feel like a transition period (or not)? Where have the biggest shifts been? And what has been the most important support through it?
And remember, matrescence doesn’t have any one fixed “ending” point. In fact, some argue that matrescence is a process that continues all the way throughout motherhood, entering new stages and periods as our experience of motherhood grows and shifts.
What can you do today to acknowledge the concept of matrescence? What can we all do?
Let’s work together to make matrescence mainstream!
Athan AM (2024) A critical need for the concept of matrescence in perinatal psychiatry. Front. Psychiatry 15:1364845. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1364845
Hoekzema, E., Barba-Müller, E., Pozzobon, C. et al. Pregnancy leads to long-lasting changes in human brain structure. Nat Neurosci 20, 287–296 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4458
Barba-Müller E, Craddock S, Carmona S, Hoekzema E. Brain plasticity in pregnancy and the postpartum period: links to maternal caregiving and mental health. Arch Womens Ment Health. 2019 Apr;22(2):289-299. doi: 10.1007/s00737-018-0889-z. Epub 2018 Jul 14. PMID: 30008085; PMCID: PMC6440938.
Carmona S, Martínez-García M, Paternina-Die M, et al. Pregnancy and adolescence entail similar neuroanatomical adaptations: A comparative analysis of cerebral morphometric changes. Hum Brain Mapp. 2019; 40: 2143–2152. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.24513