Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood

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By exploring matrescence – the physical, physiological and psychological process of becoming a mother – within this wider context of the natural world, Jones recalibrates ideas of how women are meant to exist and behave during these fast-changing years.

The pioneer of attachment theory, John Bowlby, did indeed underline the importance of the proximity of a child to a caregiver in terms of their emotional development, but he also said that parents are equally “dependent on a greater society for economic provision”, and that society should “cherish” its parents. Her fascinating exploration of the new science of our connection to the natural world emphasises the untold psychological cost of environmental degradation and climate catastrophe. You'll marvel, wince and want to take to the streets after reading Lucy Jones sweeping and courageous multidisciplinary survey of the motherlands. On one page, the phrase “This is how big it needs be” is repeated in a formation that reveals the size of a cervix in its centre.There were some I wasn’t comfortable hearing, but the criticisms were nonetheless worthy of consideration. She challenges the ideal of the nuclear family raising children in western societies, when babies are raised by networks of “othermothers” across the world, and in the animal kingdom, including in colonies of bats. Women who aren’t informed about what they might go through suffer more because of the shock and isolation.

The only piece of writing I've found that ties together all the strands of motherhood: feminism, capitalism, biology, trauma, parenting, neuroscience. It's about the relationship between the natural world and the human psyche; a wide-ranging inquiry into the mechanism by which contact with 'nature' is therapeutic.The author’s raw, honest and open memoirs gave me a sense of peace, that I wasn’t alone in many of the experiences I’ve been presented with in transitioning to motherhood. Jones sheds a fascinating light on the plethora of issues surrounding how childbirth and mothering fits (or fails to fit) into the current social and economic systems of the modern, western world. Lucy Jones has raised so many issues, concerns, thoughts - which I had when I was early into Matrescence and thought maybe I was crazy.

Motherhood has immense physical and emotional ramifications, and it is appalling that it does not get discussed as much as it should be. Moving from the early stages of her pregnancy to her eldest child’s first day at school, she describes how the mother’s brain literally changes shape’. It is] wide-ranging in its scope, packed with statistics about mental health, new studies on the rewiring of women's brains after childbirth and the presence of foetal cells in our bodies .Matrescence holds the power to carry us back to ourselves, to the rituals and community from which we came; the caregivers we all hold the seed within us to become- and Lucy Jones is the person who should have written it. Parenting - especially motherhood - and care in general are so underrated and misunderstood socially that those on the outside are not able to see their immense value and all the sacrifices they require, and those within feel like they are failing if they don't revel in all aspects of parenthood or care or struggle at times. The best book I've ever read about motherhood' Jude Rogers, Observer 'I kept scribbling in the margins: 'We need to know this stuff! There’s the medical side, but also the equally important social implications: new mothers need so much more practical and mental health support, and their unpaid care work must be properly valued by society. During pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood, women undergo a far-reaching physiological, psychological and social metamorphosis.