Matrescence

What It Means

Matrescence is the process of becoming a mother, understood as a developmental stage in its own right, much as adolescence is the passage into adulthood. Medical anthropologist Dana Raphael introduced the word in 1973. Researchers now describe it as covering the path from before conception, through pregnancy and birth, surrogacy or adoption, into the postnatal period and beyond, with changes to body, mind, relationships and identity. It names a normal life stage, and it isn't a diagnosis.

How Parents Say It

• "Nobody told me I'd feel like a different person."
• "I'm going through matrescence, apparently."
• "It's like being a teenager again, but with a baby."

The Breakdown

The stages researchers include

Source: peer-reviewed articles on matrescence in PubMed Central. The table groups the changes in plain words and isn't a clinical schedule.

Why the comparison to adolescence. Both are passages from one life stage into another, with changes to the body and to a person's place in the world. Researchers describe matrescence as a time that can bring emotional upheaval and also growth, like clearer valuesPersonal valuesThe principles and qualities a person holds most important, such as honesty, family or creativity, which guide their choices and how they judge events. See more and more self-awareness.

A short version to try today. Write down three things that have changed for you since becoming a parent, and one thing you'd like to keep from before.

When to talk to a doctor. Feeling unsettled by the change is common. If low, anxious or empty feelings last most of the day for 2 weeks or more, NIMH describes that as a sign of perinatal depressionPostpartum depressionDepression that begins in the weeks or months after a baby is born, up to a year, lasting 2 weeks or longer and stronger than the baby blues. See more, so call your doctor or midwife.

Where It Comes From

Dana Raphael, a medical anthropologist who studied birth and breastfeedingBreastfeedingFeeding a baby milk directly from the breast. The AAP recommends breast milk alone for about the first 6 months, then alongside solid foods. See more, introduced "matrescence" in 1973. She is also credited with coining the word "doula." Researchers say the idea was largely overlooked for about 50 years before it was revived in work on maternal mental health.

Good to Know

Matrescence describes a life stage and isn't a medical condition to treat. Researchers have started using it in maternal mental health to help new mothers make sense of the changes they're going through, alongside the usual screening for postpartum depression and anxiety.

Related Terms and Categories

• Fourth trimester

  The weeks after a baby is born, treated by ACOG as a stage of care in its own right, with provider contact in 3 weeks and a full visit by 12 weeks.

• Postpartum depression

  Depression that begins in the weeks or months after a baby is born, up to a year, lasting 2 weeks or longer and stronger than the baby blues.

• Newborn

  A baby in the first 28 days of life, the stage doctors also call the neonatal period.

• Parental burnout

  Exhaustion from the job of parenting that builds when its demands outweigh a parent's resources for a long time, often with emotional distance from the children.

Parenting and child development