In pregnancy it’s easy to focus our attention on preparing to get our baby earthside and all the choices and risks and benefits that entails. We prepare in all the practical ways — the yoga, supplements, shopping and prenatal classes. In truth none of that can prepare you for the primal changes that will take place within you when you become a mother.
Becoming a mother challenges every fibre of your identity. Nothing can prepare you for seeing the world through these new eyes as a mother. It can take time to find your feet and recognise this new you. It’s like opening a door to a strange new room in the house you already live in. Familiar, but forever changed. We have a name for this phenomenon: matrescence — a term first used by anthropologist Dana Raphael in 1975.
Your brain is not broken. It’s renovating.
In no other time of your life will your physical, psychological, emotional and hormonal self endure such a rapid and comprehensive transformation. Often it’s reduced to being described as “mummy brain”, but this belies the significance of the changes taking place in the neural pathways.
The amygdala — which is responsible for fear, plays a crucial role in memory formation and emotional reaction — grows larger in the immediate postpartum. Oxytocin floods the amygdala, making you hypersensitive to your baby’s needs and switching on the protective instinct.
The maternal brain also goes through a streamlining of communication pathways, sacrificing around 4% of grey-matter volume in pregnancy and postpartum to synaptic pruning, so it can hyper-focus resources on the regions needed for parenting. The prefrontal cortex enhances in its ability to intuitively decode what your baby needs, and the motor and dorsal networks sharpen the sensory response to your baby’s cry, touch and movement. This is how you are hyperaware of their movements.
Fathers also experience brain changes
Partners also undergo a transition that somewhat mirrors that of the mother. They experience synaptic pruning to sharpen their protective instincts. New fathers also frequently experience a temporary drop in testosterone, reducing aggression. This reduction increases as fathers engage in direct child-caring activities. With all these changes taking place on a neural level, it’s unsurprising that the arrival of a baby can be a challenging time for your relationship.
So new parents need to cut themselves some slack as they adjust to life with a new baby. For mothers it can be crushingly lonely as days melt into each other with the constant demands of feeding, changing, burping and settling. The pull to keep the baby close, caused by the enlarged amygdala, co-exists with feeling touched out and overstimulated and craving space. I remember wondering if I would ever shower or pee alone again. Fathers can have an overwhelming sense of responsibility to protect while feeling left out and unseen as all attention is on mum and baby. The best gift you can give to each other is grace in this time of shifting priorities. Keep talking. Tell each other what you need.
Wanting the baby close and wanting an hour to yourself can be true in the same breath.
Understanding matrescence as a new chapter of life normalises that postpartum realisation that your sense of self, your values and your relationships are changed and evolved. We can suddenly see our own parents in a new light. We relate to our partner in a different way. All of this is necessary for your new family to survive and thrive. It can take time for you both to settle into this new normal. You will find your feet again. In the meantime meet each other with grace and try to soak it all in. Time will go by quicker than you think, and soon you will be looking back on the newborn times and who knows, maybe thinking about doing it all again.