Matrescence - The Metamorphosis of Becoming a Mother

There is no doubt that becoming a parent is one of the most significant upheavals in a persons life.

But there is a growing body of evidence that the physical, emotional, psychological, and social changes a woman undergoes during pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood have dramatic, and long lasting, implications. 

Matrescence is a term for the bio-psycho-social model of becoming a mother.

This is a way of thinking about motherhood which takes into account, not just the biological processes a woman goes through, but also the changes in her brain, body, mental health, sense of identity, and social environment as she goes through pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood. 

When we think of becoming a mother in this way, it quickly becomes clear that the old way of thinking - that pregnancy is just a temporary state we go through to grow a baby - is vastly insufficient at describing what is happening in a woman's body and what she is going through.

Let's start with what pregnancy does to our bodies.

During pregnancy, there are so many changes in a woman's body in such quick succession that it can be difficult to keep tabs on what is happening from one day to the next.

Highlights include a massively increased amount of blood volume circulating in a woman's body, the body changing dramatically in size and shape putting more pressure on joints, ligaments softening to accommodate the changes in shape and prepare for giving birth, vast amounts of hormones (up to 300 times the usual amount of oestrogen for example) flood the body, and the woman's body grows an entirely new organ, the placenta, to nourish the new baby.

But what if any of these changes have a lasting impact once pregnancy is over?

Firstly, there are the changes brought by what kind of birth you had. If you had a caesarian section or a third or fourth degree tear or episiotomy, there will be scar tissue to contend with. Although scars can heal and become more flexible through massage, tissue that has scarred never goes back to the way it was before.

You may have acquired a birth injury such as a clitoral tear, prolapse, or vaginal tear. All of these cause long lasting changes to your body which will require rehabilitation and potentially, lifelong care.

You may also be experiencing incontinence - up to 85% of new mothers report some incontinence symptoms.

For some these are temporary and fleeting. For others, these persist for years and for some, they are never rectified. Dealing with incontinence can have a huge effect on your mental health, your ability to exercise, and your personal and professional relationships. Here at Sheela, we're dedicated to supporting women who are experiencing issues related to pelvic floor health - check out some of our Free Resources if you'd like more support.

There is also the phenomenon of 'mom feet'. Many women's feet change size during pregnancy with growth occurring between a half size and two sizes. For some, this will return to their previous size post birth but for others the changes are permanent.

During pregnancy, cells are exchanged between the mother and foetus via the placenta. When the baby is born, some of those cells remain intact in the mother's body for at least 27 years - possibly forever. This is known as microchimerism.

Small amounts of fetal cells remain in your body post birth - it is possible that there will always be a part of your child existing inside you. It is not yet understood what effects these cells have on the mother over time although some studies suggest that these cells may play a part in wound healing. 

Your pheromones or smell also change dramatically post birth - and not just because you may be sweating more in the post-partum period (night sweats anyone?). It is thought that a woman's pheromones change and intensify to facilitate breast feeding - your smell helps your baby form an attachment to you and can help the baby locate the nipple. 

We all know that pregnancy hormones can make you very emotional but many women report being 'more emotional' for years after giving birth. This means women are more sensitive (I can't even watch tense TV anymore), express a wider range of emotions than their male counterparts, and are more primed to react to the needs of those around them.

Recent studies have shown that 'bouncing back' and returning to your pre-baby body is practically impossible for most women.

This can be due to many factors including a loss of muscle, tone and strength in pregnancy which can take a long time to rehabilitate, a lack of access to quality sleep (due to care of your newborn), reduced ability to exercise due to birth injuries like tears or prolapse, incontinence, lack of time to exercise, changes in diet to facilitate breast feeding, etc. etc.

But even in cases where women have high levels of fitness (active members of the military), and return to pre-pregnancy levels of training by 12 weeks post birth, it can take almost 3 years to achieve pre-pregnancy fitness levels.

It's just not helpful or realistic to promote the idea that women can 'get back' to their old selves after giving birth. And that's not just because of the changes to our bodies, it's also because of the changes to our brains. 

The changes to our brains during pregnancy are so pronounced and so long lasting, that researchers are able to identify whether a woman has been pregnant or not with 91.7% accuracy by looking at scans of their brains 6 years on. 

'Mommy brain' is a common complaint for new mothers. A loss of short term memory function during pregnancy and early motherhood can affect up to 80% of women but new studies are showing that long term effects of pregnancy on the brain may actually be much more positive.

Pregnant women's brains actually adapt to learn more about baby related things (remember reading all those pregnancy and baby books?) and have better long term memory than those who were never pregnant.

During pregnancy and early motherhood, the brain undergoes such significant reorganisation that the changes can be directly compared to those in adolescence.

These changes mainly affect the areas of our brains that are associated with theory of mind - the ability to understand and work out what someone else is thinking, feeling or needing.

Our brains reorganise and fine-tune themselves in order to be more efficient at the skills we need to take care of a baby.

There are also significant changes in the brain in the Default Mode Network (DMN) - an area associated with processes like the perception of the self, self-referential processing, self-related mental explorations and autobiographical memory.

This explains how many women feel like they don't know who they are any more in the period after giving birth.

Your brain is reorganising to help you form a new concept of yourself which is more relational and entwined with caring for your new baby.

Even more astounding, is the fact that this kind of plasticity or brain change can happen in the brains of other, non-birthing, caregivers. As Lucy Jones puts it in her fascinating book, Matrescence, 'It is the infants' abilities to elicit care, which reorganise the caregivers' brains and bodies'.

So the processes of growing, birthing, and caring for an infant dramatically changes our bodies and our brains in ways that can continue to affect us for years. 

What about the social and emotional effects of becoming a mother?

In Western culture, so much emphasis is given to the health and nurture of the baby, that the wellbeing of the mother can be ignored.

This is much better served in other cultures, where caregivers and relatives rally around the new mother - taking on her domestic responsibilities in order to allow her body to heal and develop her new identity as a mother.

In some Asian cultures, there is a tradition of the new mother staying in bed for 40 days while her relatives and friends contribute to running the household and taking care of her.

There are similar practises found in other cultures like India and South America whereas in Nigeria, women benefit from omugwo - the Igbo cultural practise of care given to a new mother by her own mother or another close relative. There are examples like this in cultures all over the world.

But in Western culture, a woman is handed her newborn, and sent home, alone, from hospital a day or two after giving birth.

The new mother is in many cases entirely on her own to navigate an entirely new world (or new to her).

There is an expectation that she will somehow become expert mother, teacher, lactation specialist, nurse, paediatrician, nutritionist, child development specialist, sleep consultant, language development therapist, etc. etc. all while somehow recovering from birth, getting her pre-baby body back, running her household, and keeping her new born alive (and maybe even working too). 

It's not realistic. It's not fair. And it is contributing to a massive mental health crisis for new mothers. 

Post-natal depression is often reframed as a reasonable response to the unreasonable pressures of new motherhood compounded by the mental challenges associated with birth trauma, the immense responsibility of keeping a baby alive, being a 'good' mother, and sleep deprivation.

When we consider all the changes and challenges - biological, psychological, and social - that a new mother has to navigate, it provides us with an entirely different way of looking at motherhood. 

As a woman is growing, giving birth to, and nurturing a new baby, she is also going through a process of dramatic biological, psychological, and social change herself.

These changes are not temporary but last years and can help equip a new mother with the resources she needs to navigate the challenges of motherhood, however she chooses to mother.

When we afford new mothers the same kind of care and patience that we do new babies, we can transform the early maternal experience in ways that have huge benefits not just for individual women but for society as a whole. 

Sources:

Lucy Jones, Matrescence

Klein 'It is really difficult to get fit after giving birth, study reveals' New Scientist

C McCormack et al 'It's Time to Rebrand "Mommy Brain"'

Hoekzema 'Pregnnancy leads to long-lasting changes in human brain structure'