Matrescence
/məˈtrɛsəns/ noun
The physical, emotional, hormonal, and psychological transformation into motherhood
Motherhood is not a moment. It is a metamorphosis — the slow, stunning transformation that unfolds when a woman becomes a mother.
It is the biology of love and loss, the reshaping of bone and brain, the rewiring of identity. It’s where hormones and history meet, where physiology and psychology braid into something entirely new.
Much like adolescence, matrescence is a developmental passage — one marked not by age, but by initiation. It is cellular and emotional, visceral and invisible, a choreography of healing, chaos, and becoming.
To name it is to honor it.
To study it is to give mothers the same scientific reverence granted to every other human transformation.
the Matrescence Edit
A bi-weekly newsletter on the science + soul of motherhood.
Launching November 2025!
The Matrescence Edit brings together evidence and empathy—decoding how the body rebuilds after childbirth while honouring the profound, identity transformation of becoming a mother. Each edition features a mother’s personal reflection on motherhood, an interview or article by experts that translates evidence-based science to the matrescence journey, some of our favourite things, and new exercises each week designed to support every stage of recovery.
Because motherhood is not a single moment—it’s a continuous becoming.
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