What does it feel like to be a mother?
When we find out we are pregnant so much energy goes into preparing for the birth, which is super important, but what society doesn't tell you is that the baby gives birth to a mother. This is a new identity for you as a woman emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Scientists and anthropologists have found that women undergo major neurological and hormonal changes post pregnancy that can cause an identity crisis at all levels after the birth of their child, a shift clinically labelled as 'matrescence'.
Research also shows that a woman's birth experience influences and shapes her postpartum experience, so how a women is cared for in pregnancy and how she births has a major impact on her life beyond birth.
"Matresence is the process of becoming a mother - a transformation driven hormonally resulting in significant identity changes at all levels physically, socially, economically, emotionally, pyschologically & spiritually. This triggers a life long journey of self inquiry and redefining who you are as a woman"
Let’s understand the transformative power of matrescence by beginning with what happens with conception through to birth. The body goes through enormous change.
The uterus grows almost 8 to 10 times its size, the cardiovascular and respiratory demands increase significantly and hormonally everything shifts and the nervous system becomes vulnerable to imbalance. Emotionally there is combination of excitement and anticipation/worry over what might happen/not happen in childbirth.
When the baby is born the first hours and days are a mixture of relief, joy, and exhaustion and also depending on the birth the need to navigate healing from birth injuries, pain and soreness.
This is all the ‘physical stuff’ we can see, but what no one really talks about is the more invisible things that occur to you in the journey.
The peripartum period (known as the time shortly before, during and after giving birth) is one of the most “plastic” periods through a female’s life – on a par with when a child becomes a teenager.
By plastic we mean a great time of change on a physiological, cellular and molecular level. These changes trigger drastic shifts in our brain and body and work synergistically to “positively influence the physiological and psychological wellbeing of the mother”. (Hillerer, Jocobs, Fischer & Aigner 2014)
We can see this system as ‘nature’s way’ of preparing you for the transition to motherhood.
These areas of science known as neuroscience and endocrinology are highly specialist fields and a very complex area. For example, scientists still don’t know why certain changes occur in a women’s brain during the peripartum period – it is an area of science that is still new and still developing. With this mind, the overview provided is a very simplified explanation of a highly technical field.
Deep inside the oldest part of our brain (which scientifically is known as the hypothalamic – pituitary – adrenal axis) mother nature ‘in all her wisdom prescribes birthing hormones that take us outside our usual state so that we can be transformed on every level as we enter motherhood’ (Sarah Buckley, 2018:3).
Scientists have found, through various human and animal brain studies that this part of the brain undergoes dramatic rewiring toward the latter part of pregnancy and during the onset of lactation – a whole new set of neural pathways are developing telling your brain and its hormonal glands to release less stress hormones (catecholamines associated with flight and fight response e.g. adrenaline, noradrenaline, dopamine) and more love/pleasure hormones (e.g. oxytocin, prolactin, endorphines associated with the calm and connection response).
What exactly have scientists found when it comes to the changes in the size of the maternal brain changes.
They have found it becomes smaller in the neo-cortex (explains the change in cognition referred to as ‘baby brain’) but the limbic section or the lower brain becomes much more activated/attenuated (a heighten sensory and emotional response).
It returns back to its normal size after about 6 months post birth, so it is not a permanent change. Researchers in part believe that this is an ‘evolutionary’ response to ensuring mother is prepared for mothering, a survival strategy necessary for her and her babies wellbeing.
But isn’t mothering just natural thing that happens to us when give birth to our baby? Well actually, scientists argue that most mammalian species are not spontaneously maternal, but mother nature gives us the biology to express maternalism through these neurological changes that occur.
Our ability to express the skills of mothering will depend on our ability to promote the biology given to us, which includes a beautiful concoction of love and nurture hormones that drive our rest and digest nervous system (the opposite to the flight and fight).
In other words, if a postpartum mother is living in a perpetual state of stress, the biology can get interrupted. This doesn’t mean she is/becomes a terrible mother, but it can make her experience sad and overwhelming.
Research shows that many women report lower levels of satisfaction with the care and support they receive during the postnatal period than at any other phases of maternity care. (Forster et al, 2005) Alarmingly, research is also saying that:
50-85% of new mothers in industrialised nations experience the “baby blues”
1:5 women are diagnosed with post-natal depression – that’s 48,400 women
More than 2/3 of mothers do not meet their breastfeeding goal.
Decades of research shows consistently that conflict increases dramatically in relationships once baby is introduced
Suicide is one of the leading causes of maternal death for women in the first 12 months after birth
This unfortunate situation we have found ourselves in coupled with my own experience in becoming a mother is the fuel behind my fire why I have decided to create a business that offers postpartum doula services to newborn mothers and their families.
A postpartum doula’s job is to take the stress out of the experience so you can navigate the shifts, twists and turns in the journey of mothering a newborn baby with less overwhelm and more support. We cook for you, clean for you, massage you, listen to you, offer you reassurance, support and evidence based information.
If you are looking for support please ring PANDA National Helpline on 1300 726 306. If you are looking the services of a postpartum doula, I’d be honoured to support you, please book a consult in here.