What is Matrescence?
Matrescence is the complete transformation and identity shift of a woman as she moves through motherhood - psychological, social, emotional, physical, economic, cultural & spiritual.
- Amy Taylor Kabaaz - Mama Rising
The birth of matrescence.
“The critical transition period which has been missed is Matrescence. The time of mother-becoming...
Giving birth does not automatically make a mother out of a woman...
The amount of time it takes to become a mother needs study.”
-Dana Raphael, American medical anthropologist.
“Like adolescence, (matrescence) is a transitionary period.
Being pregnant is like going through puberty all over again: your hormones go nuts, your hair and skin don’t behave the way you’d like, and you develop a new relationship with body that seems to have a mind of its own.
The difference? Everyone understands that adolescence is an awkward phase.
But during matrescence, people expect you to be happy while you’re losing control over the way you look and feel.”
- Dr Alexandra Saks
"Women who transition through preconception, pregnancy and birth, surrogacy or adoption, to the postnatal period and beyond, experience an acceleration in multiple domains true of any developmental push: bio-psycho-social-cultural-spiritual.
A theory of matrescence provides a destigmatizing and agentic lens for mothers of all kinds to identify, explore, cope with, and shape their destinies according to their own individual differences. This same gift was once given to adolescents who before they were named as such were merely thought to be children going mad on the way to adulthood. It also gave birth to a new field; Matrescence, while at its infancy, holds this same potential.
-Dr Aurelie Athan, Matrescence.com