Matrescence. ‘The process of becoming a mother, which anthropologists call “matrescence,” has been largely unexplored in the medical community,’ Sacks writes. ‘Instead of focusing on the woman’s identity transition, more research is focused on how the baby turns out. But a woman’s story, in addition to how her psychology impacts her parenting, is

Unlike other cultures, which treat becoming a mother as a major, traumatic life crisis, with special social rites and rituals, Western societies had been failing to recognize matrescence as a major transition: a transition that involves a whole spectrum of emotional and existential ruptures, a transition that can make women ill, a transition in

Pregnancy brings about the birth of not one but two new beings. Mother is not a fixed identity; we are dynamic and grow along with our young. The

Motherhood, with its intense physical and emotional extremes, is a crucible in which we are tested and altered. In the alchemical vessel of motherhood, the heat is turned up high.