Matrescence: Transformative Strategies for the Utmost Transformation
Matrescence (pronounced ma tres ens) is a term referring to a transformative period of identity-shifting experienced by a woman during her transition into motherhood. “The psychological birth of a mother, similar to adolescence, involves hormonal and identity shifting.
Transformation is a change from which there is no going back. When transforming, our everyday strategies and behavior patterns must be revisited and adjusted to to facilitate a smooth and empowering transformation. This simple observation is the origin of the Transformational Birth Support Coaching framework.
There’s no turning back from parenthood. It’s a transformation from being someone’s child to being someone’s parent, a change that shapes the rest of your life.
It is becoming the designated adult accountable for someone else’s life. For first-time birth givers, this means transforming from someone who has been given life to someone who is giving life, which involves a physical transformation of the body, mind, and social status. This profound transformation is well described by the term “Matrescence.”
Drawing attention to the transformative nature of childbirth
Since the mid-70s, researchers have been calling attention to the becoming of a mother. One of them is anthropologist Dana Raphael, who coined the term Matrescence. More recently, Dr. Alexandra Sacks, a reproductive psychiatrist, has centered her work around making matrescence a well-known word as adolescence. According to Dr. Sacks, both Matrescence and Adolescence are :
- Hormone dominant
- Body-altering
- Irreversible
- A rite-of-passage
- Confidence- challenging, and…
- Awkward
A fearful mindset – rather than lack of knowledge or physical support, is the source of birth givers and new parents’ loss of internal authority, sense of agencey, and autonomy.
Additionally, becoming a mother or parent significantly changes our social status, unlike during adolescence. By coining the term Matrescence, the researchers aimed to draw our attention to the profound transformation that occurs during pregnancy and becoming a parent, inviting our society and culture to recognize this transformation in all aspects, including the connection between mind and body.
Women not only studied the transformation but also wrote poetry about it. Sophia Stid is a Californian poet who wrote a poem called ‘Matrescece,’ describing the experience of a modern woman while birthing:
Become a mother, become room, become food,
become miracle. The heart of each devours
the other’s heart. Hurry – become faster, Barely
made myself, I knew what they said meant
my body was a door, made for someone else
to come through. Become sacrament.
The commandments I kept, the ones
I couldn’t keep – all practice before
this one. Become sacrosanct. In birth, the pain
is not like other pain. In birth the pain is purpose-
ful and anticipatory. Anticipate. Become vanishing
act. Become numb, shaved, cut, split, crazy with pain-
become bare beneath the wide washed
lights of medicine and angels – become everything
and so nothing, and no one, but a mother, a
miracle room, a heart in someone else’s mouth
Listen to my interview with Maureen McGrath in which we discuss the concept of Matrescence
If you’re anything like me, you must take a moment to regulate your breathing after reading the poem. Reading it shook me to the core. I felt a deep sense of loss instead of the celebratory expereince of welcoming a new sole to our world. I encountered an expereince of losing power and agency. A loss of control over one’s body. It made me deeply sad. I became a doula holding a different perspective on childbirth, believing it to be the most spiritual, sacred, and empowering experience in birth givers’ lives. An experience of growth and gain. Most clients I’ve supported hired me to have a positive and healthy experience, and I thought they shared my perspective of its potential to be a positive and empowering experince. Could it be that their perspective was so much different than mine?
Hidden beliefs when undergoing Matrescence
I first encountered this term after working as a doula for over a decade. The poem resonated with my belief that my role is to facilitate a change in our clients’ perspectives, beliefs, and mindset relating to pregnancy and birth, ensuring they experience a positive identity-shifting by discovering their strength rather than losing it. I realized that pregnant individuals’ beliefs and perspectives can hold so much fear and loss and absolutely contrast with what they say they want. The loss of inner authority might even result from so many medical exams, tests, and checkup appointments with medical caregivers throughout the process of Matrescence: 13 doctors’ appointments during a low-risk pregnancy, 3 urine tests, 4-5 blood tests, 4 ultrasound tests, 2-3 vaginal exams/swabs, and 2 monitors exams, and not even one conversation about one’s identity shift! This can explain the hidden beliefs of fear, loss, and lacking self-authority, even when informed and educated. I realized I never invested the time to reveal their beliefs and address their mindset, which might explain why their choices and actions sometimes didn’t align with what they wanted. And I am wholeheartedly committed to changing it.
13 doctors’ appointments during a low-risk pregnancy, 3 urine tests, 4-5 blood tests, 4 ultrasound tests, 2-3 vaginal exams/swabs, and 2 monitors exams, and not even one conversation about one’s identity shift!
What is a transformative coaching power?
Having transformative coaching power means you can change someone’s life by means of:
- Raising awareness of one’s belief system, perspectives, needs, challenges, and strengths.
- Impacting one’s decision-making process and choices to help them rethink and revisit their world so they can rewrite their reality
- Empowering people to engage in actions that are new to them and can help them achieve the transformation they undergo.
Transformational coaches are support figures who help clients undergoing identity-shifting transformation gain self-awareness and rewrite their lives by overcoming the challenges and internal resistances to become who they want or must become. When it comes to supporting clients during the childbearing process, which is the utmost transformation in human lives, what better strategy is there than transformational coaching? I’ve found these strategies to be the most potent, effective, and perfect for supporting those undergoing this significant transformation. and developed the innovative transformational birth support coaching framework.
Scehdule your free consultation to learn more about gainning your birth worker transformative power
At the heart of this innovative approach to prenatal and postpartum coaching is the understanding that a fearful mindset – rather than a lack of knowledge or physical support, is the source of birth givers and new parents’ loss of internal authority, sense of agencey, and autonomy. It’s what leads to their submissive decision-making and behavior. Transformational Birth Support Coaches use coaching strategies to empower and guide individuals during pregnancy and birth. We help expectant parents address their mindsets and adopt new perspectives to achieve their desired experiences. We facilitate clarity, increase confidence, help clients foster commitment to their positive and healthy transformation, and facilitate higher convictions about their goals and how to achieve them.
If you’re a doula or childbirth educator who has been struggling like me to understand the gap between clients’ desired experiences and their behavior—the choices they make and their actions—and you’re willing to admit that you are overcommitting yourself when you try to close the gap between your clients’ wants and needs, then maybe you, too, are seeking to gain transformative power.
To learn more about this new framework for coaching clients prenatally and during their postpartum period, you can join the provate FB group Transformational Birth & Postpartum Coaching, where I post videos and invitations to my free events introducing this innovative approach to birth support.
- When Empowerment Misses the Mark: Pitfalls in Birth Support Empowerment - November 19, 2024
- Labor Coach VS. Transformational Birth Support Coach: What’s the Difference? - August 28, 2024
- Overshadowing the Transformative Essence of Childbirth with Data - July 10, 2024
DONA, doula profession, medical interventions in childbirth, prenatal
