What is matrescence?
Matrescence is the motherhood equivalent of adolescence.
It's like puberty 2.0.
I call it a developmental earthquake and no one else can feel it.
Dr. Edna Licabe specializes in perinatal and reproductive psychiatry.
In this episode, Dr Edna will guide us through the concept of matrescence, what it is and how we can support women going through it, as well as mental illness.
There's this thing that happens for women.
Their identity shifts.
Something moves.
Something changes in a woman.
She's not the same.
Just like the adolescent, the kid is no longer there.
You're now an adult.
Women are becoming something.
There's this pull to focus on this baby to keep it alive.
But there's this push on the other side, which is my old self.
I need to sleep.
I need to eat.
I need to go out.
And that's mattresses.
I do not give a fuck.
I-D-G-A-F is in the dictionary.
Mattressence isn't.
Whoa.
How do we not have it in our phones, have it in our dictionaries while we're not talking about it?
There's this thing called synaptic pruning.
Is this what would be colloquially known as baby brain?
Yeah.
It's like a renovation happening in there.
Everything on the outside looks the same.
Could you tell when Penny was renovating inside her brain?
There were signs.
Gee, John, shaky ground there.
I'm so glad I wasn't asked that question.
I thought you were going to start.
Well, I do often.
And then I thought well Edna, our guest lecturer today and expert is your.
Well, I mean, she's your psychiatrist.
Yeah.
I was going to say my friend.
Can I say friend?
Yeah.
Yeah.
In this space we are.
Okay.
But not outside this room.
Well, no, no.
Even outside this room we're okay.
It's just that.
When we're in the consulting room, we're not friends.
We are not friends.
We're not enemies.
No, no, we're not enemies either.
Somewhere in the middle.
Everyone, this is Dr. Edna, who is my psychiatrist.
Hello, Dr. Edna.
Hello.
I'm Ryan.
For ages I've been trying to find a psychiatrist that I could talk to about my ADHD.
Get a proper ADHD assessment done.
You showed up without a wallet, I remember.
Well, yeah, that's true.
It's convenient rocking up to your psychiatrist appointment.
Oh, you know what?
Because of my ADHD that you assessed me for, I don't have any money to pay you.
Boom.
So I'm about to read your bio, but just another little snapshot of who you are.
So we're going to do the episode last week, but you were unable to because it was your daughter's 18th.
Is that right?
Correct.
And can you tell us what you had planned for your daughter's 18th?
Well, I forgot.
And then I was reminded because I was going to say yes to Bridget.
And then she said to do this episode.
Yeah.
And then she said, have you forgotten we're having that tattoo?
Oh, your daughter said that.
Yeah, we're having a family tattoo.
So what is the family tattoo?
So the family tattoo, I'm Edna, husband's Ernest, daughter's Eva.
And then we have a little Estelle.
So all these were like the Kardashians.
Love it.
Yep.
Way cooler.
So dad's E1, I'm E2, she's E3, and we have E4.
So you're getting those codes.
Yes.
Not the four-year-old, obviously.
No.
I'm not tagging her yet.
We are responsible.
Yeah, E4.
Yeah, E4 is going to come.
She's going to be in four years, in 14 years.
Yeah.
So I'm E2 and E3 are getting it done.
E1 and E4, we'll get it done in 14 years.
So Ernest will wait.
Yeah, he has to, right?
She can't do it on her own.
Then we're all going to be bonded with our little E's.
And why didn't you get it done last week?
What happened?
I was late.
You were late to the tattooist.
Don't shame me.
Just to bring the audience in on this, because we've been speaking a little bit and Hugh has been – you are late sometimes.
You're a quite late person.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah.
Why is that?
Why is that?
Well, look, I'd like to blame my Africanness.
I wouldn't.
Don't you dare.
It would be so wrong if you did.
I will not do that.
But you go for your life.
Look, I have one life and I want to cram a lot in.
You know, I want to do it all.
So I just make plans upon plans upon plans.
And then on the day I look at it all and go, how am I going to do this all?
Some things give.
I love that explanation.
And let me tell you, when you have Aetna, you have 100 undivided attention focus, and you understand why.
You're awesome.
Yes.
Oh, thanks.
Anyway.
So Dr Edna Licabe specializes in perinatal and reproductive psychiatry, working with women through challenges such as infertility PMS, anxiety relating to childbirth, perinatal loss and adjustment to parenting.
Dr. Edna, just so I'm about to go through her qualifications.
Ryan, just have a guess.
I'd like you to guess how long this?
I don't know the answer, but I'd like you to guess how long this took.
Dr Edna has a Bachelor of Surgery and Medicine, a Master of Psychiatry, a PhD, a specialist medical training from the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Royal Children's Hospital, the Royal Women's Hospital and the Joan Kerner Women's and Children's Hospital.
How long it took to get all that?
Yeah.
Oh, is it 10 years?
Surely it's more.
More.
15 years?
Keep going.
20.
20 years.
Yeah, but I didn't notice the time go by.
That doesn't surprise me.
Yeah, check that out.
What is time?
What is time?
Right.
For 20 years plus of study?
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Okay.
So we are in very, very good hands.
So Dr Ender's practice is built on the foundation that mental illness is the number one pregnancy complication.
And it's something that's very often ignored.
Focusing on spotting mental health issues early.
Dr Edna is interested in prevention to help mums stay well before, during and after birth.
In this episode, Dr Edna will guide us through the concept of matrescence, what it is it's a wonderful word, by the way, but what it is and how we can support women going through it, as well as mental illness that women are at risk of during this period, and how to navigate diagnosis and treatment.
And just before men listen to this, hit the eject button.
You need, like, you just have to know this stuff.
This is, it is just as important.
I would say even like potentially more important for men to understand this, because when your partner is going through this, like for them to have to make sense of this, understand it, try and work through it.
It's so much harder.
Like if you are all over this stuff, you're doing good.
So please keep listening.
Absolutely.
It's almost like we should title the episode Beers and Footy, so we know that the men are going to listen.
I'm all about that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anything, right?
To get them in.
Beers and footy.
Beers and footy.
I feel like someone will smell a rat, but...
Okay, matrescence.
What is matrescence?
Well, to even be talking about this topic in particular, it's super exciting.
I couldn't stop talking about it after talking to Bridget.
I was like, we're going to talk about matrescence.
I'd like to introduce myself as the Oprah of matrescence.
Of matrescence.
Oh, yeah.
Are we all going to win a car?
Mattressence for you.
That's what I do.
Literally I sit in my consults and every woman that comes to my door I'm like girlfriend you got mattressence.
Is it that common?
Is it really a common thing, mattressence?
Did you go through adolescence?
I did.
I hope.
I assume so.
Are you still going through it?
Probably.
Probably.
Matricence is not an illness.
It is the motherhood equivalent of adolescence.
It's like puberty 2.0, right?
So adolescence, I don't know what you recall of it.
There's a lot of hormones.
It's messy.
It's, you know, your whole body's changing.
Your voice is changing.
Well, yours is not mine, but mine changed a little bit.
But voice changing, body changing, your whole world is changing.
You're slamming doors.
You're trying to figure out who you are.
And it's pretty messy.
And you're going from this kid mindset.
To adulthood.
So there's that period in between is called adolescence.
And that's about 12 years of it.
Interestingly, I looked this up the other day.
I was like, when was it discovered, adolescence?
Do you know when that was discovered?
No idea.
1973 would be my guess.
That's matrescence.
Adolescence.
Oh, sorry.
Adolescence.
Do you want to show off?
Hey, Hugh, let the guests do the bits.
Let the doctor talk about matrescence.
But I will ask you about that, that you've got it.
Okay.
Adolescence.
I actually had to go read up about this.
When was adolescence?
Because it's in the medical vocabulary.
Matrescence isn't, but adolescence is.
And it was coined back in the 1400s.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, 1400s.
That's close.
Totally.
In the 1400s the Latins the Latino, not Romans figured out a word adolesare, which means just to grow up.
So you were a kid, and then at 12, you were grown.
You were adolesare.
That's it.
You're grown up, you're going to work.
So at 12, you went to work.
Happens overnight.
Yeah.
Overnight, you go to work.
You start providing for your family.
You go off and get married.
At 12, you're adolescente.
You've grown.
And then in 1904 this American psychologist came along, G Stanley Hall, and he described the modern adolescence that we know now, which is that it's a really messy hormonal identity changing sort of space.
And he blamed industrialization.
And he also blamed school.
He said school was causing this because kids were forced to go to school.
There was mandatory high school in the early 1900s.
Mandatory high school meant that kids weren't able to go to work.
They had to go and be at the school.
And it was delayed adulting.
Mm-hmm.
So he called it like as a disturbance of industrialization.
That it should be a quick thing, but it's been dragged out.
Yeah, exactly.
Delayed adulting, he called it.
You know, he also said there was hormonal changes, but it was delayed adulting.
So there was this messy 12 years.
He said it was between 12 and 24 where there's this mess.
Hmm, then you come out huh, are you there?
24 25, you're there.
Yeah, a little bit older than 24.
Fantastic, so we're good, yeah.
Um, so there's a term for and there's books written about us since night.
So what's that?
I don't know.
Let's try and do the math.
What's that?
122 years, we've known about it for mattresses.
How long have we known about it?
1973 done boom, So we haven't known about mattresses at all.
We haven't talked about it.
I mean, women have been birthing for 300,000 years.
Microsoft Word still doesn't recognize it.
Gives it a red squiggly.
Really?
Squiggly.
Come on, mate.
Squiggly.
Try writing it on your phone.
Try writing it on your phone.
It will give you a squiggly.
It will try and correct it.
I mean, you're right in calling it mate if it doesn't know what matrescence is, because it probably is a bloody bloke.
Bloody Microsoft Word.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, that's the most symbolic thing I've ever heard in my life.
Well, there was a campaign around that, right?
You've heard of the recent campaign?
Penny has educated me on the campaign.
These two boys are like, what campaign?
I have not heard of the campaign.
So last month there was a campaign run by Tommy Tippy, which is a brand for baby bottles and baby toys.
And Peanut.
Do you guys know Peanut?
It's like the social app.
I know.
I don't know that.
Yeah.
He's saying you know the nut.
I know the nut.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, got that.
Yeah, yeah, got it.
It's like a Brazil nut, but smaller.
Yeah, sorry.
I think tastier.
Yeah, yeah.
Peanut is an app which connects moms.
So Peanut and Tommy Tippy got together and they were like, let's do something about this.
And they did a full page ad in the New York Times just last month.
So this is amazing that we're doing this podcast now, because their campaign was based on I do not give a fuck.
I-D-G-A-F is in the dictionary.
Mattressence isn't.
Whoa.
The phrase I-D-G-A-F is in the dictionary.
Mattress isn't.
And so this is a global awareness campaign, which is fantastic because it's bringing it into our mainstream conversation, which we're doing now.
We're bringing it to the forefront and saying, how is this possible?
Yeah.
How do we not know about this adolescence, this period of messiness, this period of growth and this period of hormonal changes?
How do we not have it in our phones, have it in our dictionaries while we're not talking about it?
I mean you're asking a rhetorical question, but I think I'd love to know your thoughts on why people don't talk about it more.
I think we also need to answer the question what it is as well.
Oh, yeah, true.
Yeah, we still haven't even got around to it.
Yeah, what is it?
So it is this profound biological psychological, sociological thing shift that happens for women, right it?
It moves a woman from womanhood to motherhood, and this is not an age thing, but it's around giving birth, it's around becoming a mother, it's becoming, and it's not something that happens overnight, and it was coined in 1973 by the american um anthropologist Dana Raphael.
So she studied a lot of cultures, around 250 cultures.
She went around looking and trying to understand the phenomenon of motherhood.
And what she found.
In these cultures the African cultures, Asian cultures There's a lot of tradition.
There's a lot of rituals.
I come from one of them, where there's a lot of song and dance and there's a lot of keeping the woman safe and looking after her before she comes out into the world to be introduced as a mother.
In the Western world, we don't have that.
You have a baby and we're told to focus on the baby.
It's baby-centric.
We focus on the baby, we sort of forget mom and what's happening for her.
I want to get to Josh's question in a minute, but just to go over...
So there's physical changes.
I think we all can think about the physical changes that happen with the body.
Yeah.
And they're more obvious, I think, and more front of mind for people.
Yeah.
But I think what we're going to focus today is more the psychological changes.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Because that is very much what you do, help women through that.
Absolutely.
And we're talking from the minute they fall pregnant for the rest of their life, pretty much.
Is that how you would...
Absolutely, for the rest of their lives.
So when Dana Raphael described it, she described it as a sociological phenomenon.
She said there's this thing that happens for women, their identity shifts.
Something moves, something changes in a woman.
She's not the same.
Just like the adolescent, the kid is no longer there.
You're now an adult.
There's remnants of the kid, but you're still, you've become an adult.
So women are becoming something.
She described it as a sociological thing because in the 70s, they didn't scan brains.
They didn't have a look at what else was going on.
But now we know more, right?
We know that there's actually physiological changes happening.
So if you fast forward from 1973, if you fast forward, there was no scans, there was no further studies done.
That was it.
It was dropped, matricence. put down.
2017, you come forward to 2017, there's an American psychiatrist by the name of Alexandra Sachs.
She brought it back into the mainstream.
So again she took out well, she didn't take out an ad on the New York Times, but she wrote an essay in the New York Times again, which is very strategic, of Peanut and Tommy Tiffey.
To go back to New York Times, right.
Because in 2017, Matt Dressen came back on the scene.
So between 1973 and 2017, no chat of matrescence, even in medical circles, even in psychiatry?
No, no, that doesn't exist.
Medical vocabulary does not have it.
And you ask the question, why is it not there?
In medicine, we're trained to look for illness.
Matricence is not an illness.
So medicine doesn't see it as an illness.
So it doesn't exist, right?
When Alexandra Sachs actually talked about it in 2017, she brought it back and said hey, motherhood is not what we think.
It's not this unilateral joyous thing where you're like, gushing over this baby and it's all great.
Motherhood is way more complex than that.
It is loaded with this identity shift, this emotional, complex landscape.
She's like, there's something else going on.
So she did a TED Talk and it went viral as well.
And so what she described, which we keep coming back to this, I think it's a really important way of understanding mattresses.
Alexandra Sachs described the pull and the push.
The simple theory that she described mom's brain changes in a way where she's pulled to focus on the baby.
There's a physiological pull to keep your attention on it because the human baby is born.
They can't feed themselves.
They can't walk.
They can't do anything.
So mom has to keep this thing alive.
So 300000 years ago when humans came on this earth.
The brain hijacks things so that you, There's this pull to focus on this baby, to keep it alive.
But there's this push on the other side, which is my old self.
I need to sleep.
I need to eat.
I need to go out.
Right.
So it's like the things that your old self had the freedom to do.
Eat, sleep.
Yep.
Hang out with friends.
Yeah.
Exercise.
Do some gardening.
Go out and have a long brunch.
Go and... Be by yourself.
Be by yourself.
Read a book.
Put my makeup on.
Go shopping.
Go traveling.
Be that friend, that spontaneous... Like all those things are pushing moms this way.
But then there's this biological...
I need to look after this thing.
So there's this push, pull, push, pull.
And that's mattresses.
That's exactly what mattresses.
There's this push, pull, push, pull.
And it's so discombobulating and disorientating.
And it's even more so when everyone around you is saying, you're depressed.
You're anxious.
You're a bit stressed.
You haven't slept.
It's hormones.
It's like, There's this push-pull, push-pull.
And she called it normal ambivalence.
Say it again.
Normal ambivalence.
Okay.
It's like an ambivalent state.
You're not here.
You're not there.
You're in this ambivalent no man's land.
You've never been there.
Scary being in no man's land.
And especially if you don't have words for it.
Yeah.
How do you describe to your partner?
I'm in no man's land.
Because society tells you, you should be happy.
You should be grateful.
You should be joyous.
You should be.
This should be the best thing that's ever happened to you.
Yeah.
Self-sacrificing because it's Western society.
It's child-centered.
We're centered.
The baby is the most important thing.
What you're going through, put it away.
You're stressed.
It's your hormones, right?
But there's this. ambivalence that happens for women.
Adolescents are allowed to go through it.
They slam doors, they go off and do their thing.
And you're like, they're just being a teenager.
Moms put it away.
Like you need to show up.
Alexandra Sachs called it this normal ambivalence.
It's a normal developmental phase.
So when I see people They see me, they, you know, they're referred by their GP.
The GP says, oh, you know, this woman's depressed or the obstetrician says she's a bit stressed.
I meet them and I'm like, girl, have you heard of the term matrescence?
And in 80% of cases, 90, even higher, when I first thought it was 100%, nobody knew.
Nobody knew matrescence.
I didn't know matrescence.
I knew something was wrong.
I was like, something's not quite, this doesn't feel like depression.
I know you look sad and you look like you're crying, but you're not really sad.
Like, you're not really.
Like, I know what depression looks like as a psychiatrist.
I feel depression before I actually see it.
These mothers are still functioning.
They're still doing it.
But I'm like, you're not quite depressed.
You're not quite anxious.
What's going on, mattresses?
So you described before that we've now been scanning the brain and seeing what happened.
Would it be helpful to explain what is happening from a technical point of view?
Yeah, I love it.
We'll talk about the biology of it first, then we'll move to the psychology of it and then move to the social
So from a biological point of view...
When did we start scanning brains?
Only in 2009.
Okay.
Whoa.
Around this topic.
Ah.
Wow.
Just a few women, just a handful, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I think it was like a study of like six women or two.
I mean, there's so many men's brains we've got scanned, so.
Yeah.
Of course.
When do you think MRIs came around?
Before 2009.
Could be my guess.
1970s.
1973.
Yeah, close around there.
MRIs were, I mean, women have been birthing 300,000 years, but we didn't scan their brains.
Of course, there was no MRIs.
But from 1970 I don't know when it was why haven't we been scanning brains of women?
We haven't.
And 2009, there was a group of scientists um in yale who studied it and they were like, let's have a look at what's happening.
You know, we'll scan a bunch of women before pregnancy because they saw it in mice.
Mice changed well something, we know something, so maybe the brain's changing.
And They scanned women before pregnancy and postpartum and there were some changes.
There was structural changes and there was functional, like as in it lit differently, it looked different and the chemistry was different.
Wow.
Wow.
2009.
And they thought you know what?
Let's park that for eight years and wait for someone to write an article.
Let's come back to it.
Let's come back to that.
We're going to put a pin in that and come back.
Totally.
So exactly that.
So they put a pin in it, 2009.
You're for real.
It's accurate.
But 2016 was like another big study, 25 women landmark study published in Nature, huge.
It was like big news where the study looked, scanned women before and after.
And then again, what they found was changes.
And the areas of the brain that change is where the emotional regulation is.
So women are a bit more sensitive for their baby.
Empathy changes.
And then it just goes through the roof?
Through the roof.
Empathy changes.
Social cognition.
I don't know if you guys know what social cognition is.
No.
I mean, I'm imagining it's like awareness of social situations?
Correct.
It's the area of our brain, which is a network, yeah?
It's not like one little spot.
It's like a whole network where it's where we perceive, interpret, and respond to social cues.
So you're able to read a room and be able to read your baby and know what your baby's up to before anyone else knows.
You can read things.
And those areas get upgraded, right?
There's this thing called synaptic pruning that happens.
Have you guys ever heard of the synaptic pruning?
Yeah, I have.
In adolescence.
Yeah, it happens in adolescence.
Correct.
The scientists who published this, I met them last year and I was geeking out.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you guys are like, yeah, sure.
It was amazing.
It was in Barcelona.
They have amazing names.
Oscar Villarroya, Susana Carmona, Helzwein Hoxema, like beautiful names.
But what they said was the social cognition part of the brain for mom is super lit up.
So she can… That was the official finding?
Yeah.
Super lit.
Lit, right?
And there's synaptic pruning, which means that the brain It's a bit like you know.
They described it as rosebush being, like you know, Taking off unnecessary bits to enhance the.
Correct.
The next season, it comes back blooming beautifully.
Not exactly the same, grown a bit differently, but blooming, right?
So they found in this study they scanned women before pregnancy and then they scanned them throughout pregnancy and then they scanned them postpartum.
So before pregnancy, rain intact size.
Whatever size it is in their pregnancy 34 weeks, it's heading down.
It's shrinking.
Is this what would be colloquially known as baby brain?
Yeah, the areas of the brain that it's all rewiring, right?
So there's a lot of word finding difficulties.
I can't think fast.
I'm just like foggy.
Your brain is busy hacking away at things, changing walls.
It's like a renovation happening and everything on the outside looks the same.
No one can tell.
Could you tell when Penny was renovating inside her brain?
There were signs.
Gee, John, shaky ground there.
I'm so glad I wasn't asked that question.
I remember I've got tickets.
Oh, have you?
Okay.
I remember on the way into hospital to just get a check, when Penny might have been around 20 weeks pregnant for the first time.
Yeah.
And we're running a little bit late.
We were coming all the way in from the Mornington Peninsula, a long drive in.
And the closer we got to the hospital.
We're getting later and later and the traffic is worse and worse.
And someone, Penny was driving.
Because I'd lost my license at the time for just doing my points.
So Penny was driving.
And Penny's a lovely person.
She's one of the loveliest people I've ever met.
And someone tried to drive...
Just try and get in front of her, which is a reasonable request.
But also it was reasonable that Penny didn't want to.
But instead of just pushing forward, Penny looked at him and she just said to this guy, I will fuck you up.
Whoa.
And I went, what the?
Oh, my God.
I smell mattresses.
Yeah.
Maybe there was some pruning taking place at the time.
I don't know.
Totally.
So before I'm going to tell that story, because you asked and also thank you Penny, for keeping the story in
But also it happens before birth.
It happens before birth.
And the pruning when they look at this study.
It was the first study.
Looking at this at 35 weeks is the lowest point where the brain has shrunk down 5, 5 of the brain, the cortex, which is the top, like the surface of the brain shifts.
Again, it's the social cognition, it's the emotional regulation, the empathy.
All those areas go fast.
And you're not losing brain cells.
Women are not becoming dumb.
Women are not, you know, dementing.
They're not having brain atrophy.
I thought I was having dementia.
You know, none of that's happening.
It's just your brain is rewiring.
So that at 35 weeks beyond that, it starts coming back up again.
And then you gain back about 3.4% by six months postpartum.
So it's a slow burn back up, right?
There's a lot of changes happening.
And it's not just the structural stuff.
It's the functional stuff.
It's a wiring.
Would it be a helpful thing to do –
Just while my career is still intact, I'll just say this, and then, if it's over after this, it's over.
But no, but would it be a fair thing?
Because you know, often you know I don't have kids obviously, but people who do have kids you know those apps and it shows you like, how big the baby is.
Like you know, as it grows, would it be a helpful thing to have a similar thing for like a representative of the brain to show at 35 weeks?
I think you should patent that.
Love it.
Yes.
But just the understanding so friends, partner, family understands what's going on.
100%.
And you do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Correct, right?
I mean, these books, I mean, I read one of those books.
You know, the baby's the size of a grape, the size of a peanut, the size of a grapefruit orange watermelon, whatever.
But no one talks about exactly what's happening in the brain and all the shifts that are happening right.
And the women that speak to you when they're talking to you about what they're going through.
I'm guessing they're really cognizant of the changes that are taking place.
Or they know that something is happening.
Or is it just they feel like there's just something wrong with them?
Or are they saying, I'm guessing...
When you explain this, it's like a look of relief, because they feel something's going but don't have the words for it.
Correct.
They don't have the words for it.
Well, they've gone to the GP already, or they've gone to the obstetrician and they have a loose label of depression.
Or you're anxious, or you're stressed.
Go talk to someone.
So they feel that, but that is the result of what's happening.
And if you're doing all of this and the world around you is not seeing that or making adjustments or allowances for that, you start becoming stressed and start becoming depressed and you start feeling a bit depressed.
Scared because you're in this ambivalent hole of like you've never been here.
It just feels unsafe.
It feels scary.
Hence depression.
Hence anxiety.
If I've learned anything from this podcast, I feel like I've learned that the good old amygdala likes to get involved in stuff with the brain.
Totally.
And that's like the main threat.
That's like the threat center.
What's happening to the amygdala during this?
So, you know how I said the surface of the brain is changing, like it's shrinking.
So then, the study also looked at the deeper structures and the amygdala, the threat center, the alarm system of the brain and its homies.
It's got a little crew.
It's not rolling around on its own.
It's got kids.
The amygdala changes.
So the threat center is there to scan threats for baby, to see that there's something the baby can swallow there.
There is a threat.
And it doesn't just hide.
I'm guessing, with all its homies it still doesn't have the ability to go.
We're just going to look at threats for the baby.
It just goes, let's look at threats for everything.
Everything.
And we're going to be on 24-7.
We're not going to let you rest.
It's on until motherhood stops, whenever that is.
Oh, that's a long time for some people if they're lucky.
My mother's still mothering me.
It's forever, right?
But I don't want to say it's doom and gloom.
It does get better, right?
Your threat system is not 24-7.
But at the beginning, it's 24-7.
And if you add in sleep restriction...
Breast, hurting your perineum, hurting other types of pain.
Criticism from other people becomes really hard.
So the amygdala and its crew changes, right?
The other area of the brain that changes is the hippocampus, which is like a seahorse-shaped little part of the brain seahorse.
It is involved in memory and learning.
So it is learning new skills.
And it's having difficulties with memory because there's not much sleep happening, but there's things that are being remembered.
There's another part of the brain that changes as well called the basal ganglia.
I don't know what the shape of the basal ganglia is.
I looked at you and I was like, I don't know what shape it is.
I was going to think basal life.
Yeah, yeah, good.
The basal ganglia is involved in our reward and motivation.
That's where our motivation and our behavior sit, right?
This is what I do.
And thalamus is the other area that changes, sleep-wake cycle.
It becomes quite light, so you're able to wake up for the baby.
So there's deeper structures that are changing.
There's service structures where the information highway passes.
There's so much restructuring happening.
All that's happening all at once.
So women feel like a bit different, a bit different.
Memory's a bit off because it's offline because it's being rewired.
And memory is really important.
Learning is all about the baby when the baby arrives.
Nothing else matters.
So the focus just becomes all about the baby.
Wow.
Biology.
Yeah.
I call it a developmental earthquake.
That's a good description.
It sounds like it.
It sounds like it.
Yeah.
I read it somewhere and I was like, oh my God, that's exactly it.
It's an earthquake and no one else can feel it.
It is even more of a mic drop for people when I tell them you're going to go through this again with every kid.
Matricence is not just a once-off journey.
You go through it with every child.
You get brain development, brain changes, synaptic pruning, that social rewiring, that identity shift.
It all happens again.
Every single, you know, every single child.
Wow.
It just must be so…
Like in your experience when you went through matrescence.
I guess you're still.
Are you still going through matrescence or does it end?
Oh, that's, I, everyone asks me that question.
Does it end?
Yeah.
Well, adolescence ended.
Yeah, I guess so.
Right.
So maybe it's sort of.
And you're a new person.
Correct.
You come out the other end, mother.
Yeah.
But it takes time.
So how long that takes, the brain scans suggest seven years.
Yeah, okay.
Until the next study drops in 20 years.
And they're like, oh yeah, 20 years, still there, changes.
So I reckon it's forever.
But at this stage, we had one month, six months, four years, two years.
Now we have the seven-year study.
So changes, matricence, like the changes that have happened are there forever.
But the acuteness of it, like the hotness of it, the alarm system like really switched on.
That's at the beginning.
Yeah.
The other area of the brain, social cognition.
We talked about that.
Yeah.
You become like this sponge.
I like this one, SpongeBob SquarePants.
Oh, yeah.
You're like soaking everyone's emotions, not just the baby, everyone else's emotions.
Oh really yeah, i can totally understand the utility for yeah, it's all feels like it's all designed utility for what is best for the baby, but it's just has no filter.
All of it just sucks in everything around you, so you're just a victim of everything that's going on in your life.
Microsignals.
And as humans, we have microsignals.
There's little eye rolls, there's little, or, you know, just a little head check.
It becomes huge.
Huge, micro signals.
And you need that for your baby.
But then now you have it for your mother-in-law, you have it for your mother, you have it for your boss, you have it for your friends.
And all of a sudden...
Everyone feels like they're criticizing you.
And so that's where the doubt comes in.
You start feeling like, I'm not good enough.
I'm failing at this.
Maybe I'm better off not being a mom, right?
Because somebody else can do this better than me.
Oh, God, that must be terrifying.
And at the same time, everyone's saying nothing's happening to you.
You're fine.
You're just stressed.
You have depression.
Yeah.
Well, I wanted to ask you about that because, like anything, understanding the cause of what's going on can, I think, for many for me I'll talk personally whenever I've been going through something.
If I can understand why I'm feeling a certain way, that can do a lot of work for relieving a lot of the suffering.
Correct.
But then I guess there are also cases where people Well, quite common, where women do fall into and men too, but we're talking about matricence.
So, postnatal depression, postnatal anxiety, postnatal psychosis.
How do you know?
Well, how do you do the work of understanding the difference?
Or is it not so much difference that they're sort of connected?
Yeah.
But how do you, I guess, untwine a lot of this stuff?
This is why I run late all the time.
I think that's the other answer.
Trying to figure it out.
Because it's all springboarding on mattresses.
Yeah, yeah.
Right?
I always go, yep, this woman's going through mattresses.
Got it.
What else?
What's happening to is this part of an environment is she presenting to me because the environment's not suiting her mattresses?
It's not supporting her mattresses.
Because this is a normal thing you're going through, girl.
This is totally normal, but is there something else going on?
Is there a critical partner or an absent partner or a demand that you need to attend to?
Like, I need to be at work and I can't be with the baby, but there's that.
Pull, push, pull, push.
What is happening?
Let's find out.
Because if there's things happening, absolutely, you can end up with depression.
Absolutely.
And I...
So with the depression, it can, mattresses can drag up old stuff.
So if you've had depression in the past, it can really bring it up.
If you've had anxiety in the past, it can really bring it up.
If you've had OCD in the past, it can really, trauma, because the threat system is on.
The threat system is switched on.
The last time the threat system was switched on, there was trauma happening.
The body can't tell the difference between that trauma 20 years ago and what we're going through right now.
All it knows is that there's danger.
And when threat system is on, you become hypervigilant, you become anxious, you develop panic attacks.
And I'm sitting there going, why are you having panic attacks?
What's going on?
I should probably mention you mentioned OCD there, something that Penny obviously struggles with, and matrescence absolutely took it to some pretty dark places and still does.
You had an incredible chat with Penny on her podcast.
It's Not What You Think, so we'll link to that, if someone listening has.
Because I mean you could do a whole episode, a whole series on OCD, so we'll put a link to that if that's you and you want to know more.
Yeah, this is something, just an alarm bell just rang, not an alarm bell, but just like a light bulb went off because a friend of mine she lost her mum to suicide about Before having children.
Yeah.
And she felt that she had grieved and processed that as much as she needed to.
Mm-hmm.
And then when she had her child, it completely, like the depression she fell into completely came out of nowhere for her and she wasn't ready for it.
And I think, had an extremely difficult six months and was worse than she ever was during the grieving process of her mum, and I think she would be blown away to hear of this concept of matrescence and what's happening and it would explain so much as to why it was so different and so heavy and so dark during that time.
When she thought i had this, i thought i dealt with this.
Yeah, that's why i try and figure it out and sit down and what's going on, what has happened in the past, and it'll be something benign, like something you feel like you've processed.
You know i've dealt with that.
It's definitely not that and i'm like it will be that because your brain can't tell the difference the last time It felt this scared.
The last time it felt this confused or alone.
Because it is quite alone.
Yeah.
And it also feels like it's a different brain now.
Totally.
Looking at the same stuff.
Yep.
Exactly.
It's pruned.
So now the emotional system is feeling a bit more alone.
It's having a deeper understanding of what motherhood is.
So for your friend who's become a mother, who's lost her mother, what does that mean?
Even though she knows that her mom's gone.
There will be a part of her that needs her mom, even though she knows her mom's gone.
But there's a part of her brain that will need that guidance, that support that can only be given by a mom.
So that will show up and there'll be a grief in that.
There's a new grief that shows up.
Yeah.
And again, no one can see that.
They would just be like, oh, you're depressed.
Yeah.
Yes, you are depressed, but depressed because of all these, if you understand and unpack everything.
Yeah.
There's definitely some relief that happens with talking about it.
Yeah.
So we talked about specifically the threat centers heightened.
So there must be a lot of worry that takes place.
And I'm just thinking back on Penny's experience, our experience together with this.
But there was a lot of anxiety for Penny around different things.
And I just wonder, I'm sure it's very common.
How do you know the difference between what's like reasonable worry and probably due to atrescence, or when does it become Potentially an anxiety disorder?
I don't think that's the right thing to say.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Disorder is the key word.
Yeah, okay.
You're right.
Because anxiety is a normal human emotion.
We all have anxiety.
We need to have anxiety.
Anxiety is what moves me from one thing to the other.
You know, it makes me.
Really?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
You're like, oh, I'm running late.
I gotta go.
Run.
There's a Yerkes-Dodson curve.
If you look at it, there's like an inverted U shape and there's a sweet spot for anxiety and performance.
If your anxiety is too low, your performance is not that great.
If your anxiety is too high, your performance is not that great.
You want optimal anxiety to perform.
Gotcha.
Okay.
And this is another reason why I run late because I'm trying to figure out, is this normal anxiety?
Because when you're handed a baby, you should be anxious.
You should be anxious.
You should be worried because they don't come with a manual.
You'll find this out.
They don't come with a manual.
You wing it.
That's another business idea for you.
Baby manual.
Baby manual.
I reckon I'll get someone else to write it.
Written by Ryan Shelton.
I'll give it a bash.
You have one customer.
Number one, got to change their nappies.
You just got to.
At some point, you're going to have to change their nappy.
Here, it's difficult.
And it's hard.
It might be a bit gross, but you've got to do it.
But they don't come with this manual.
You're given this baby, and then here you go.
Worry arrives, right?
And then I sit there trying to figure out what's normal worry versus abnormal worry, right and exactly, if you come back to that york dodson curve.
So i, is this a time specific anxiety, like i am anxious that i didn't um close the seat belt up properly.
I'm just going to check.
Reasonable, reasonable.
That's reasonable.
I asked women, what are they worried about?
And they tell me reasonable things.
I'm worried that the baby's not breathing.
Reasonable.
You're worried that the baby's not breathing.
I'm worried the baby's too hot.
Reasonable, reasonable.
You should be worried because these creatures can't keep themselves alive.
You should be worried for the child.
When does it become a problem is if it's no longer just a specific thing, it is now persistent.
There is no gaps between.
You're constantly worried about something and then it starts showing up in your body.
Tight chest, heart racing, can't concentrate, can't watch a show, can't read a book, can't focus restless irritable, short as.
Muscle tension, like I feel like I have a headache all the time.
My jaw, I'm clenching.
I'm exhausted and I can't sleep.
Just cannot sleep.
Just i'm trying to sleep but i can't because your nervous system is switched on so it's persistent.
It is um physical, physical showing up in your body right, you're becoming overwhelmed by it, and then it leads to behavior that's trying to neutralize it, right?
So, for instance, like i'm about to start driving,
I'm worried the baby is not locked in or not seat belted in properly.
I'll go check, but I'll get back in the car and I'll drive off and I'll forget about it.
The person who's worried will be thinking, I checked it, but what if I have an accident?
What if I have an accident?
What if they choke in the back and I'm driving here not focused on them?
What if this has happened?
What if that's it?
They think you're worried about things, and then they go okay well, maybe I shouldn't go out at all.
Right.
Then their behavior changes.
Or I worry that the baby's going to get sick, so I won't go out.
You know I won't put the baby on the floor because I worry that they're going to crawl on the floor.
Put their hands in their mouth.
And I say I'm not going to give the baby a carrot stick because I worry that they're going to choke.
Yes, you worry, but you don't change behavior.
Child still needs to go on the floor.
Child still needs to have the care.
They need to eat.
Child needs to be cared by other people.
You need to let go.
You need to be able to sleep.
You need to be able to delegate.
If those things are impaired, your function is impaired.
This is now an anxiety disorder.
Now it's getting in the way of your function.
And I imagine just a slight tangential question, but related.
I imagine that's the same even if you're not a mother.
Yeah, everyone, exactly.
It becomes an anxiety disorder when your behavior changes.
Yeah, behavior changes or it's showing up in your body.
Or it's also, it may not be your behavior changes, but you start having negative self-talk.
Like, I'm shit at this.
I'm bad.
I'm not a good mother.
I'm not a good employee.
I'm a crap friend.
And you really become one with that thought.
You start having really negative self-talk.
That's not a normal worry.
Normal worries, I worry about this, but pass this.
So in terms of the anxiety versus anxiety disorder, like when the worry gets too much.
Yeah, disorder.
The disorder.
Your performance goes down.
Is that something in practice, is that something that you see a lot?
A lot.
Way more than depression.
People come in the door saying you know they get a referral, saying this woman's depressed.
But I actually sit down and I'm like sounds more like worry.
You're worried.
You're worried and you're crying a lot because you're worried that you feel like you're not a good mother or that you're failing somebody.
It's not depression, it's anxiety.
But anxiety is the cousin of depression.
It invites everyone in.
It invites in depression.
It can invite in OCD.
It can invite in old trauma.
It can invite in grief, previous griefs.
It can invite in agoraphobia, social isolation.
It can invite in psychosis.
It can invite, yeah, it's a gateway.
Right.
So anxiety is the guest that knows everyone.
It has a lot of friends.
Yeah, okay.
It's got trichotillomania on speed dial.
It doesn't have any good friends.
No, it doesn't, right?
But it's functional.
Yeah.
You need anxiety.
I need to be anxious to be running away from the lion.
Yeah, but I don't need all its friends.
I don't need all of his friends.
I don't need it to stay all the time with me.
I need it for a little bit.
I need it to get me from point A to point B. What was the one you just said?
The last one you said, the last friend?
Trichotillomania.
Okay.
Is that the hair?
The hair pulling.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's so many.
The whole DSM.
It's all related.
Because?
Eating disorder.
Yeah.
Because of my recent diagnosis with ADHD, my algorithm has adjusted significantly aggressively on social media to send me so much ADHD stuff.
And so I've consumed a lot.
And one of the themes that seems to come through a bit is that women will often discover their neurodivergence after becoming a mum.
Not to make this about men and dads because this is not what this episode is.
No, it's very important we talk about dads as well.
But later, at the end.
Yep.
Tack it off for two minutes.
I learned about my neurodivergence once I became a parent.
And amazingly, the way I describe I haven't had a chance to tell you this yet, but the way I describe myself now.
I'll make some notes.
Yeah, you make some notes, yeah.
Since the medication you've put me on, I actually feel like myself before I had kids again.
I feel like my old self.
And so I just wondered if neurodivergence is a thing that you see a lot pop up for new mums, because all of a sudden, from what I've read and what I understand, women are very good at masking neurodivergence and then it might potentially be harder to mask when there's so much going on neurologically.
Absolutely.
The coping strategies, the self-regulation tools, the way of getting around the hacks that mothers have developed and dads have developed over the years no longer works.
It all starts showing up.
I can see the walls coming down and everything feeling very different.
And so autism or ADHD or any kind of neurodivergence can often reveal itself at that moment.
For the first time.
Yeah.
For the first time.
And when it reveals itself, people do come to... They're not seeking an ADHD diagnosis.
They're not seeking an autism diagnosis.
They're seeking help with their depression.
They're seeking help with their anxiety or... the distress they're feeling.
And I'm like, have we thought about?
Because, if we look back, you were over-functioning, you were stimming, you were doing things you know to regulate your brain back then,
And now you're unable to do any of those things which suited your nervous system.
So how do we bring that back?
Because that will be very helpful if we can find time for you to do Minecraft for five hours.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah, that's amazing.
But it's not a new development.
Definitely it's not something that shows up.
It's not a de novo.
I call it de novo.
It's not a de novo condition.
Anxiety can happen for the first time, anxiety disorder.
Depression can happen for the first time, postpartum, ADHD and ASD.
It doesn't show up.
It was there all along.
Yeah, it was there all along.
It's just unmasked.
So yes, I do see a lot of women, they do come through because the system is falling apart.
Children don't follow.
You should put this in your manual.
They don't follow a schedule.
They change the schedule up.
When you have a plan, women lay down these beautiful plans and then the child wakes up and poops and wants to eat food and Throws everything up in the air.
Yeah.
And that routine you speak of is almost like without knowing it, they were kind of self-medicating.
It was like a self-medication beforehand.
Yeah.
They were self-regulating.
They were actually attending to their brain, their nervous system.
Unconsciously, they had a life that was designed perfectly.
And also sensorily.
We had Bron Lewis on the podcast comedian and writer, extraordinary storytelling, but also talking about her journey as a new mum.
And she talked about the light and the noise being just and we'll link this episode because if you want to hear someone talk about it, much better than I just did but the light and the noise, the sensory stuff was just all of a sudden shocking.
You know how I said?
The thalamus, one of the parts of the brain that changes.
It's the part where the sleep-wake cycle and all that.
It's also where senses come in.
Noise, smell, sight, everything comes through there.
All of a sudden, it's rewired.
You can hear things better.
You can see things better.
Everything sounds loud.
Sirens.
Sirens, everything sounds like a siren, everything looks like a spotlight, everything feels.
Just the clothes feel disturbing, right.
This is why the old, well, my culture especially, women are separated from society.
They're put in a room, it's dim, it's quiet, it's, come back down a bit because you're heightened.
Is this during pregnancy, you mean?
Postpartum.
Postpartum.
In Asian cultures, they have that period of confinement.
Really?
Yeah.
In Asian cultures, I think it's about 40 days.
In my culture, it's certainly 40 days where women are cared for by other women.
So your only job is to look after your baby.
And even then you're supported.
And noise is low.
Lights are low.
They knew about this, the biology, already.
But in the Western culture you come out and you hit the streets of Grattan Street after having a baby at Royal Women's.
Yeah.
You're straight into it.
You've got like TV, phone, people, calls, visitors.
Visitors immediately, immediately, right?
I would go around in the hospital, right?
No visitors, like in the medication chart.
And I said, why are you writing that?
It's for medication only.
I'm like, no, no visitors between eight and eight.
And they're like, but that's a visiting hours.
And I'm like, no visitors.
Because a SpongeBob SquarePants is around.
You're absorbing everyone's.
Yeah, micro signals and everything.
You're hearing more, you're seeing more.
Is there a reason why it's 40 days in those cultures?
No idea why it's 40 days, but medicine even observes that.
You don't know yet, but at six weeks your obstetrician sees you and signs you off pregnancy's done, which is 40 days, 42 days.
Interesting.
The confinement was also a period where it's to stay away from infections.
To establish breastfeeding and if any immunity you have, you passed on to the baby.
But no one tells you that breastfeeding might not work out.
Yeah.
I think a lot of people listening to this have experienced postnatal depression.
And I'd love to hear you talk about the experience of postnatal depression from the people you've worked with.
Because I have heard people talk about it a lot.
It has great PR.
Yeah.
It does.
It really does.
Too good a PR?
Too good.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, look, it is a devastating condition.
I don't give that diagnosis out very easily.
When it is happening, it's quite devastating.
So it is a very serious condition.
So it should have good PR.
But it's not as prevalent as anxiety.
Postnatal depression can be completely debilitating for some women, for 10% of women.
So one in 10 women get it.
And it doesn't show up day one postpartum.
Day one postpartum is usually the baby blues.
We call it baby blues, but it's mattresses.
But we have to have a medical neighbor.
Baby blues, hormones crashing, mother's adjusting, baby blues.
But depression, usually it kicks in.
The highest peak is around four months postpartum.
Right, okay.
Yeah, this is where the social supports have left.
You're on your own.
Sleep deprivation is like piled on.
You're feeling quite lonely and things feel different.
You're now right in that ambivalent state that I was talking about.
There's a pull towards a baby.
But I miss sleeping and I miss going out and I miss doing all these other things.
I miss the old self, but I also don't want to be the old self.
I also want to be here.
So you're alone in this and nobody around you can tell you what's happening.
So the depression then shows up as sadness unable to care for yourself, not wanting to eat, not wanting to do anything, not actually finding any enjoyment in anything.
So it's persistent.
So it's not just I'm sad one day, then I'm okay the next day.
It's every day not wanting to engage in anything, not wanting to go out, not wanting to socialize, not wanting to hold the baby, not wanting to interact with the baby.
There is I can feel depression when I see someone.
It's immediate.
Like they walk in, the person, you can almost feel that the lights are out.
A person is having some really dark thoughts as well can pass through.
That I'm not good enough, maybe I'm better off not being here.
So it's dangerous.
So it should have good PR.
I say it in jest, but actually when I see it I'm like okay, this is, matrescence has happened, but this woman has not been supported in her matrescence.
She's completely been left alone in this state and not understood.
Not her fault.
Not the fault of her family because they don't know either.
Not the fault of the doctors because they don't know either.
Nobody knows except for Dana.
Hmm.
And if someone listening to this right now is feeling like they're in that spot in this very moment, what do you say to them?
I say to them, this is the hard thing, yeah?
When you're going through depression yourself, the organ that you need to use to think is actually malfunctioning.
It's hard for you to see it.
It's hard to reach out and say help.
All the depressive cases I've seen is because the partner was worried.
The mom was worried.
So I say to the family, look around us.
Does your partner look different?
Are they saying different things?
What are they doing?
What are they not doing?
What do they used to do that they're not doing now?
I think that's an amazingly helpful thing that you just said, maybe worth repeating, which is that, in all of the cases,
All of them.
It's not the woman putting her hand up and saying I have depression, it's the people around her.
Yeah, because a woman, even in that stage...
There's still that pull to the baby.
I need to look after the baby.
And I feel so guilty that I can't do it.
That pull is... It's phenomenal, this biological wiring.
That pull is still there towards the baby.
So a woman might still be wanting to do things, but is finding it tremendously hard.
Yeah.
So...
I have seen some depressive cases.
I maybe misled you there.
I do see some women have, but they're not in the trenches of depression.
They're like, they feel like they're slipping into it.
But the point being is it's very rare.
Very rare.
So my advice would be if you have a woman who's given birth in the last, hmm.
How long do we say?
I'd probably defer to your expertise over mine.
I'll just look at my manual.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Well, the perinatal period is defined as from a psychiatric point of view, is defined as from conception right up to two years.
Two years old.
Two years old.
Yeah.
So if you have a mother who's in that period, have a look.
Oh, really?
So even for the two years after, it's not postnatal?
It's perinatal.
It's perinatal?
Yeah, yeah.
It's still postnatal.
Oh, okay, yeah.
Peri just means around.
Okay.
So it's before birth.
Post means... beyond birth, natal is birth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So postnatal, antenatal is before birth.
Gotcha.
Yeah, perinatal is when you're right in the middle of delivery and then postnatal.
That perinatal covers all three.
It's the umbrella.
It's the umbrella.
Okay.
So perinatal from a psychiatric point of view is from conception.
From a perinatal psychiatry point of view, but from a reproductive point of view, it's from the time you want to conceive.
So when you decide you want to.
The moment that baby starts appearing in your head, oh, we need to think about having a baby.
Clock it.
Because there might be some losses.
One in five women have a loss in pregnancy.
So there might be miscarriages.
There might be difficulty conceiving.
That needs to be captured because that leads to a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression.
This is a really important one to talk about.
So the loss of a child.
Yeah.
What if a woman falls pregnant but doesn't end up giving birth?
I mean, they've obviously entered matrescence.
Is that still, are they still for the rest of their lives matrescent?
Yeah, well, the brain can't tell the difference.
The pruning has been happening, right?
So the moment pregnancy occurs, the hormones have shifted.
The gray matter is thinning, the deeper structures, the amygdala is rewiring all the memory paths, the hippocampus, the seahorse, all that is changing, yeah.
And The loss might occur early on in pregnancy.
It might occur much later where the dip is at its lowest.
There's fetal death in utero, FDIUs, which is quite late in pregnancy.
They can be stillborns.
So the brain has changed.
And it's even.
I feel that matricence is even more absent for those ladies because there's no baby.
Yeah.
So their grief and their matricence is even more unnamed and more unsupported.
Because you haven't got a baby.
You're just grieving, right?
But you're no longer...
That person that you were, you've shifted.
Your biology's changed.
Trauma might show up.
Depression will show up.
So for women that I meet, I have to honor that they have also gone through matricence.
They've gone through the biology, the psychological, the physiological.
They've gone through it.
And those women feel a relief when they hear that you are also a mother.
It's just your baby's not on earth, but you are still a mother.
So once a mother, always a mother.
Amazing.
I feel like, speaking of PR, I feel like matrescence...
It obviously needs better PR for many reasons.
But one of the things I think of as interesting is that we look at adolescence as a difficult time that creates this amazing adult and you become this.
The narrative, at least, is like what a wonderful adult.
Now this is a great thing.
You've gone through it and you've got your life to live ahead of you.
Whereas a lot of the things we talk about today acutely sound extremely challenging.
But it also feels like there is an opportunity to change into the next version of yourself, that is, this brilliant woman who can take on the next part of life in a way that your previous self couldn't.
Yeah.
And it kind of feels like there needs to be a celebration of matrescence rather than it's all doom and gloom.
Absolutely.
The doom and gloom, it comes from the fact that we do not honor the transition.
We don't honor it anymore.
We don't have any acknowledgement of it.
We just have that there's a baby that's arrived, let's focus on the baby.
There's a lot of that, but we've lost that.
And if we spend time just honoring that, absolutely.
Women that are supported.
I see women that are supported in that space and they flourish, absolutely flourish.
It's just that their brain has rewired and it picks up old trauma, which comes back, and sleep deprivation.
But I know once we get the mattress and things back in line, amazing.
It's phenomenal, the changes.
Yeah, there's also that phrase of like.
I mean, I hear it.
I must admit I hear it more about the body of like.
I want to get back to pre-baby weight or something like that.
But I feel like there's a narrative of like I just got to get through this and get back to what I was before.
So I can – Back to the job or back to whatever.
Yeah, back.
It's always looking backwards.
And that feels like it needs a fundamental rebranding as well.
We need to change it.
Flip the script.
There's no going back.
I don't want to go back to childhood.
I mean, it would be fun.
But, yeah, it would be totally fun, right?
Yeah, but you also have to –
Absolutely.
I think there needs to be a reformulation, a re-scripting of what this new person and this is the other part of mattresses is, the sociological change that women feel.
That is actually not named as well.
The women that are not depressed.
They're like I just need to have space to talk about.
I just don't feel like me.
Mm-hmm. you hear that all the time i just don't feel like me i'm like what does that mean what what do you mean i don't know i used to love traveling i used to love this i used to love that there is a drive to go back but it doesn't feel the same because There's an ideal of what it should look like.
I'll just go back.
There's that narrative.
I'll just go back.
Everything will go back to normal.
But it doesn't because there's that pull towards your baby.
Yeah.
But there's also this push that you want to go back and reclaim the career that you had, reclaim that girl's trip reclaim, you know, reading a book.
Yeah, whatever you know, whatever you were, you know that degustation girlfriend who organized things.
And you want to go back to that.
But at the same time, you feel different because that old you ain't you.
There's a new you.
We don't know who the new you is.
But we'll get there.
We'll find out who that new you is.
And just by articulating that, women are like, yeah, and there's a new me.
Yeah, yeah.
And the husband's like, who is this?
Like, what?
And I'm like, it's happening for you too, dude.
Well, but on that, but like on...
The dude.
The dude.
Or even the partner who hasn't given birth.
Non-birthing partner.
Yeah, non-birthing partner.
Yeah.
I imagine that could – you're potentially depending on the degree of change during the matrescence in the person –.
Are you almost like having to get to know a new person?
I know you're scared.
You're like, what is going to happen to my partner?
Well, does it affect the dynamic of the relationship or can it?
Okay.
Um, I don't want to scare you.
How do I say this?
You're not scared?
I'm too far gone.
Okay, too far gone.
Absolutely, there's a change.
Post-birth, there's a sense of, there's a new sort of space for I'm still that person.
I still want to travel.
I still want to have sex.
I still want to do all that stuff but not as much as I used to do.
And that brought me a shock to the partner.
But hopefully the partner's in it as well and also is like, yeah, we can't travel like we used to.
We can't just spontaneously just drop things and head out.
That partner's gone.
You can't do that.
The reality is you've got dependents, right?
We're now not just me.
We're like we.
We're like a lot.
So yes, the woman, the birthing mother, does change, but the changes are not a whole new woman, but it's a woman who's got.
Her values are a bit different.
Her priorities are different.
Her relationships are a little bit different.
She shows up a bit more differently.
Like a new identity.
Yeah, a new identity has arrived, right?
There's, you know, the one that was the people pleaser.
You know, if you had a partner who scaffolded you, who did everything, was like because she's super organized right.
Like doing everything and was happy to do yours as well.
Now she ain't got time.
She's got like other people to do.
So you might be left out in the lurch.
Absolutely.
And that will feel different.
So relationship shift.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I do see partners and there is Studies show that 67 of couples sort of have a lot of conflict in the first three years of a child's life.
67%.
Wow.
A lot of conflict because the relationship boundaries are changing.
Who are those freaks who are doing it without conflict?
That's all I want to know.
33% of people don't have conflict.
No conflict.
They're liars.
Delusional.
It's interesting because, like the cliched scenario which of course I'm not speaking from experience because I don't have kids, but the cliched kind of like joke, where it's like the guy trying to in a heterosexual relationship, the man wanting to continue to go play golf all weekend.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
He hasn't changed.
He hasn't gone through matrescence, I'm assuming.
So his wants and priorities haven't shifted in the same way that the birthing mothers has.
Is that fair to say?
There's still a developmental earthquake for dads.
Okay.
But not the Richter scale.
I don't know what the Richter scales are.
If your mom is 10, dad's like a 5.
Yeah.
It's definitely happening.
And that dad who's going to golf needs to go to golf.
They also need their time, right?
If that's what filled their cup, they do need to go fill their cup.
So there is some shifts that happen But it needs to be realigned.
And that takes a lot of time.
And that's why a mother just doesn't become a mother immediately.
It takes time.
There's new boundaries, not just with the partner.
There's boundaries with your boss.
Like, I'm not going to be available 24-7.
Yeah.
Just acknowledging the thousands of men who just skipped back 30 seconds to make sure they heard you right when you said men should play golf.
And have already sent it to their partner.
This was a great episode.
An hour and four minutes in.
Is that all you heard from everything I just said?
I'm just suspecting.
I can go to golf.
No, absolutely.
Partners can go to golf.
There has to be a negotiation.
There's boundaries that are being set everywhere.
It's with partner, it's with work, it's with your girlfriends, who are used to you being the one that organized things.
If you were the people pleaser, if you were available for your mom to kiki for two hours a day.
But mom, i haven't got two hours a day anymore.
Mom's not gonna be happy with that.
What do you mean?
I have two hours.
Mom should know, but it's long gone.
She'd forgotten about it.
Um, You have to reestablish.
And that, as well, can feel really difficult for some people, because some people are used to people pleasing.
So it feels like I'm failing this other person.
I'm failing my partner.
I'm not participating in this.
I'm not participating.
I'm failing at this.
I'm failing at that.
Actually, let's flip the script.
You're not failing.
The ideal mother, what is it?
What is the ideal worker?
What is the ideal partner?
We have this idea that I should bounce back.
But reality is you don't.
So I sit with women, which is why I run late all the time.
Let's talk about what was your ideal?
Oh, you know, I expected to be breastfeeding.
I expected to be... at home and do this and this.
Really?
Did you expect that?
No, actually, I'm a pilot.
How is that going to do that?
I don't know.
Girl, you tell me.
How are you going to do that?
Society told me.
Maybe I just drank this Kool-Aid.
It's in my DNA.
This is what I believe.
This is what I was told.
Yeah.
One of the things that I
That has occurred to me and I feel like I'm getting into dangerous territory here.
And it's just occurred to me.
So hopefully this comes out right and I'm not offending anyone.
You're in a safe space.
Thank you.
But I feel like there is a movement quite rightly of. for women to be able to do it all.
And there's a movement of independence.
You can be an independent person.
You can have kids.
You can work.
You can do all these things.
And I can't help but thinking that maybe a reluctance to acknowledge matrescence is a fear, that that it's an acknowledgement that things push against this idea that you can have it all, certainly for a period of time.
Maybe it just feels like there's a potential clash there that people don't want to acknowledge or talk about because it feels like it could ruin.
And progress in women being able to have more independence over their bodies, over their lives, over their finances, over the way that they want to live.
That totally makes sense.
This is where Josh and I are always at loggerheads.
I'm always, yeah, women can have it all.
And Josh is like, no, they can't.
I'm with Josh on this.
Yes, they can.
They can, but not all at once.
Not all at once.
Because there is that pull and push, you know, that ambivalence that I was talking about.
It's It's biological.
It's so deep inside that yes, we're going to try and push against the grain, but unconsciously there's that anxiety around.
There's something else I'm dropping.
So having it all, absolutely, you can have it all.
I agree, you can, but not all at once.
Not all at once.
And every woman will tell you that.
I have it all, but then...
Not everything is 100% all the time.
There'll be something that will be a little bit on the back burner.
Something else is going forward during ratrescence.
Well, yeah, and I think it kind of sets...
Well, to not acknowledge matrescence sets you up for failure.
Correct.
Because if it's not matrescence, then it's my inability to have it all.
Correct.
I'm not able to do what I'm supposed to be able to do here.
Yep.
So this is exactly, you're describing the ideal mother is the one that's self-sacrifying, that's present for every single mother. emotional meltdown, that I am grateful that I'm never complaining.
I'm there all the time.
Then there's this ideal career woman.
I've got it all.
I'm a barrister.
I wear the wig, wigging I heard the other day is a term.
So I've got that.
And then I am this fabulous girlfriend who goes on weekends away and I do that.
And I'm this sexual human being in my relationship with my partner.
And I'm That's a lot.
That's a narrative that really does undermine what's actually happening biologically in the mattresses.
However far we go in furthering women's rights.
The biology is still there.
Biology hasn't changed 300,000 years.
We're still having this pull towards this baby that will make us feel in some way something shifted.
Yeah.
Something has shifted inside, right?
So, no, you can't have it all.
Not all at once.
Yeah.
Not all at once.
It's a really interesting distinction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can have it all, just not all at once.
But that was the other thing I wanted to ask you, which is that for women who and I'm obviously not a woman, but I can relate to this which is that women who get a lot of their sort of self-worth and value from work or success or their career,
And that has been the way that they identify as a successful person in the work world.
And they're very productive.
They're very intelligent.
They've had so much success.
Then they have a child, they become a mother and they go through matrescence and their priorities shift.
And how does that, I'm just imagining that would affect them in a slightly different way again.
The ambivalent state, the pull towards the baby, but there's a push to the top of the arm.
That push, I still want that, but do I want it in the way that I wanted it before?
Hence the boundary with employer.
Return to work is a big topic actually, because your new self meets your old self and you don't know your old self is there.
So you get to work, you're like, first day of work, and you're like, I don't like this.
It doesn't feel good.
And perhaps the work you're in is also not set up for the new self.
You might be required to be there full time.
You might be required to be on call 24-7 or checking your emails all hours of the night.
Well, also like for a person like that, like a real...
You know, a striver.
Yeah, go get her.
Often, depending on your work, but often you'll get so much praise.
Totally.
From the work you're doing.
Your whole identity is that.
Yeah.
Your social values, your social standing, your intellectual stimulation, financial reward.
Work ticks a lot of boxes.
And when that's gone, you then go, well, what?
It's confusing.
Yeah.
Where's my value?
Where's my value?
What is going on?
What is going on?
I have a lot of women get back to work and go, I don't know if this is for me.
The work.
Yeah.
Or maybe I'm not good enough for this.
Maybe I'm not.
You know, this is where I start looking for worry and anxiety.
I'm like, what are we worried about?
Are you worried about failing?
Well, you're not failing.
Maybe the system is failing you.
Why is it?
What's happening?
Well, your work is designed in a way where you can actually.
You were overperforming before.
You were perhaps doing too many hours, potentially.
People knew you as the person who went out networking, drinks after work.
You're not that person anymore because your values have shifted.
And it's like, well, how do I do this then?
I'm like, well, I'll see you next week.
Oh, no.
I was hoping you were going to get the answer.
Well, this is matrescence, yeah?
It really takes time to figure it out.
And fortunately, the kid grows up in that time.
So as they're growing up, you do unlock different stages of matrescence.
Like I just unlocked the 18-year-old one, which is Job's done.
Yeah.
I'm out.
Never call me again.
Yeah, lose my number.
Lose my number.
Unfortunately not.
According to, what was his name?
I can't even remember what his name was.
The dude who figured out adolescence.
Stanley Hall.
Yeah, yeah.
He's still 24, right?
A few more years.
A few more years, like I guess you've mentioned that people don't want to show up back to work, sometimes in the same way that they wanted to previously.
And I think it would be easy for a workplace to see that as a challenge and see that as a um, a negative, but also many of the ways you've been describing the way the brain changes in matrescence, I assume, could be also viewed as an asset for a workplace.
Absolutely.
How do companies, after acknowledging that matrescence is a thing, how do companies better facilitate this transition for women to come back into work?
Yeah.
That's a deep question.
How do they facilitate?
Well firstly, we need to actually have a dialogue around what matricence is and what's actually happening.
And it's...
It's a really challenging one.
I don't want to get myself in trouble.
There's some roles for some women that I work with that it's actually impossible to go in as their new self.
It's a real challenge because you are expected to come back and in the middle of the night you're meant to be up there if there's a trauma case.
And there is no allowance made for.
You may have a baby, you may be lactating, you may be breastfeeding.
There's also a larger societal sort of responsibility in terms of ensuring that there's social supports for the mom.
In terms of social supports, as in that there is the ability for the mom to be able to perform the job that she wants to perform at the level she wants to perform it at.
Does that make sense?
It does, yeah.
It's not just the role of the employer, but it's actually the role of society.
How are we structuring our society?
Where has the village gone to support this mom?
How is this mom supported?
And dad, how are they feeding the child?
How are they getting all the kids to a thousand different places?
How are you able to do this job?
How do you do it?
So it's not just on the onus of the company.
I believe it's on the onus of the whole society as a whole, right?
Yeah.
And I also think potentially, the way I frame the question is a bit of an impossible one to answer, because it's not
It's different in every single situation, but at least if companies and society has a proper understanding of matrescence.
That's the starting point.
That's the starting point.
I think the Danes and Scandinavian countries are a little bit ahead of us, like the Swedish and Finnish.
They have long paternity leaves and maternity leaves, parental leave.
Two years.
After two years, they honor the first thousand days of a baby's development.
Yeah.
You know, and that's all paid leave.
Wow.
Full pay.
So we don't have that here.
Yeah, it's such a good point because for a lot of women it's like yeah, I'd love to have the time to go through my matricence, but I can't afford it.
Can't afford it.
I have to go back.
And when you do go back, I need to be back at a full-time rate to be able to afford the lifestyle, because I'm putting my child in care and that costs money.
So how...
The maths is not maths-ing, right?
So it's not just on the owners or the employers, but it's actually on the government.
It comes back to the government.
What initiatives are there to support women, you know, mothers and dads for returning to work?
Because dads are missing out as well.
They're forced to go back after two weeks if you're in a company that honors fraternity league.
Yeah, yeah, it's a whole other tangent that I've heard amazing stuff about.
Annabel Crabb wrote an amazing piece in The Quarterly where she talked about how to get men more involved in parenting.
Like you need to give more parental leave to men because often – women will be doing it so much.
And also what you've talked about a lot with matrescence today makes total sense to me that, with all these different changes in the brain where women are so much more acutely aware of what the child needs,
Yeah.
And then the man goes back to work and isn't there to see it.
And then you tell women you need to be better at letting men do the parenting.
But they haven't been there to do any of it and they don't know.
They don't see the signals.
They don't know the signs.
It's set up for failure.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
You're setting up the family to fail.
To fail, yeah.
Fail the ideal mother, the ideal father, you're setting them up to fail.
So it's a huge, I mean, the government is now on a campaign year.
Is it a campaign year?
I feel like it is a campaign year, an election year.
Feels like it.
Yeah.
So I'm hoping matrescence will get into their spirit.
Yeah, the dialogue for a politician somewhere.
Sounds like Pauline Hanson's type of thing.
Yeah, totally.
Do you have any speed dial?
Not quite.
Not quite.
Yeah.
I don't either.
But we need a politician to pick this up and think about how matricence and patricence is supported in society so that moms and dads can honor their biology, honor their psychology, honor their shifts that are happening for them.
Because that's how we actually get to make an impact on mental illness, on reducing depression, on reducing anxiety, on reducing the future generation.
That's how we do it.
We create space for this process.
Mm-hmm.
So we actually, the Resilience Project, have just had a few women return to work.
In fact, it's happened over the last five to ten years.
It's been a continual thing.
And one of the things that we, Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness, we talk about a lot.
And a big part of what we do is try and come up with new lesson plans to try and teach, get kids practicing empathy in schools.
And the women who come back to – I mean, women before they have a baby as well.
But I mean, if empathy goes through the roof, then our curriculum is going through the roof as well.
Yeah.
Because we have got those women returning who have got like empathy in spades and we're trying to teach it.
I mean there are so many – things that happen to a woman through matricence that make them a valuable asset.
I mean, that's a specific example for the Resilience Project, but I imagine any company would benefit from having higher levels of empathy in leadership.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the point I'm trying to make really is that, like, let's look at what has happened to them.
And look at what the work is and how do we?
You know, it's such an exciting opportunity to get someone to come back who has changed in a way that
The example of empathy is just such an incredible asset to have no matter where you're working.
Absolutely.
And when I am working with women returning to work, I'm like, let's bounce off this.
Let's, you know, go to an employer and redesign this.
And try and figure out what we can do with your career.
What would you be interested in doing?
And women are creative.
When they come postpartum, they get super creative.
Well, I've always, you know, I think I like this and I want to do that.
And I could see an opportunity where there's a bit of philanthropy that I could do within the company and I'll pitch that.
And they pitch that and it usually goes ahead, right?
And it's aligning a woman's desires interests passions, values.
But a company has to be open to it.
A little bit of a jump, but I feel like I want to acknowledge what you said before about that it does happen to men.
There is an earthquake.
Because I've definitely become a different person.
I think you guys, everyone in my life would notice that about me.
But one of the things that I found and I think I've often put it down to like a lot of work that I did with a psychologist for a long time.
And I have mentioned this before but like after, the sort of glow of having a child faded after a few weeks, that initial kind of like euphoria.
Yeah.
It's called oxytocin and prolactin.
Okay.
After that, I would love more of that.
It goes.
I found some familiar patterns of thinking, negative thinking kicking in.
And I was able to I almost say to myself, I'm not going to listen to that like I used to.
I'm going to make a choice here not to listen to that.
That negative self-talk?
Yeah, that negative self-talk.
And it's not like I've gotten rid of it altogether.
It's definitely still there.
It comes and goes.
But my ability to cope with it, it felt like I had a different brain to actually – to approach that.
And I, and I'm not negating all the work I do with the psychologist.
I think that's definitely part of it, but it genuinely felt physiologically different.
Like I'm a different person now.
My priorities with life have changed quite a lot.
And I.
For me, it came back to cause I'm.
I love music and art and creativity, and I've listen to Nick Cave talking about change and the myth of being stagnant and that no, you're always changing and to not change is a pretty bad life.
Exactly, it's all about changing and changing into new versions of yourself as you go through, and for me it's been this beautiful thing and I'm not.
Maybe some ways I've changed for the worse.
Maybe sometimes for the better.
But I just wanted to say that it certainly has been real for me.
2014.
That's when it was discovered for you.
You know, procreating for 300000 years, but it's only 2014 where we have a name for it Patrescence.
It does happen.
And, exactly as Patrescence, there's a biological change, brain structures change.
There is the psychological change, which is what you've described like having that negative self-talk and and your identity sort of shifts a little bit.
Your priorities are like whoa, you're putting down boundaries that you probably never ever put down.
It just means that i'm not going to engage in that anymore.
I'm not going to do that.
I'm not.
You know, i'm Not going to do that.
Yeah.
And certain things that used to light me up don't light me up the same way.
Correct.
You know, what I used to love doing, I'm like, it doesn't even rock.
Like movies.
Remember how I said to you, I loved movies.
Couldn't think of anything worse.
You don't want to watch them.
It's a long time.
Yeah, no interest.
But I don't know what happened, right?
I actually don't know.
But my interests have changed.
And I'm still the same person.
So coming back to Patrescence.
Something did happen to your brain.
Absolutely.
Medicine doesn't know it.
2014 was the first time where we started to be like, maybe some things are happening.
Hormones definitely shift, right?
Testosterone heads down.
Sorry.
It's all good.
It comes back up.
About 25-30% of your testosterone drops and it happens for a reason.
It happens, so that you don't take risks, that you stay safe for the family that you have now for nurturing, for bonding, for reduced sexual appetite as well, because your partner at that time is not interested in that right.
And you need to be focused on not procreating another child.
You need to keep this newborn alive.
Again, it's interesting how biology wires itself to protect this baby.
Don't bonk the wrong person.
Totally.
Well, you won't even have it.
You ain't got it.
30% down.
You know what I'm saying.
That's what your brain's saying.
It's not going to work.
I think Penny's pretty safe if you're saying bonk, oxytocin and prolactin, which is what you were saying.
You're that glow, you know that, you know that bubble, that bond, you hold the baby and it's just this beautiful little thing.
Shows up, beautiful.
You're not lactating.
Prolactin is the hormone that allows lactation.
You're not lactating obviously, but it's inducing that same response, that love, that interest, that you look at the baby.
It's interesting.
Every time you look at the baby, you get a little dopamine reward hit.
Yeah.
It's like almost like, I shouldn't say this, methamphetamine looking at your baby.
A little hit.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
You just get addicted to just looking at your baby.
So it's this little bubble.
And there's also vasopressin that shows up.
That's a hormone that's not talked about much.
And it compensates for what testosterone left the building.
It allows you to be aggressive.
It allows you to be territorial and protects, right?
So the mother's brain is designed to care for the baby, to feed the baby, to keep it alive.
Your job as dad, Neanderthal, is to protect.
Not Neanderthal, but to protect, right?
Can that show up like that, that sort of territorial thing?
Can that show up even if you're away from the family?
If you're like with a bunch of guys and like something kicks off at the pub, is your.
Your vasopressin is up.
Definitely.
Again, a bit like the SpongeBob SquarePants, where you're reading the room, you're just picking up everyone's micro signals.
You can't switch them on and off.
You can't switch it on and off.
You're in that patrician state.
You're in that state.
You're right in it.
So it does feel different for dads.
It really, and again, no one talks about it.
It's all on the outside.
You look like yourself.
Yeah.
Did you look exactly the same?
But you were saying something was different inside.
Only your partner will know.
Maybe, or people that are closest to you can tell that.
Hang on, something's changed, something's shifted.
And for some dads, the patrescence can springboard them into change.
Dragging up old trauma, old patterns of thinking, negative self-talk or trauma or past depression anxiety overthinking, worried about things.
It can show up.
Yeah.
50% chance you will too.
Wow.
That's wild, isn't it?
That's wild.
Yeah.
So whenever I meet a mom that's profoundly depressed, that's sitting in front of me depressed, I quickly look at dad, because he usually brought mom, because mom didn't have the energy to bring herself in.
And if he's not on the screen or there, I'm like, where's dad?
I need to meet dad.
And I meet dad and they're just hanging on by a thread because their vasopressin is trying to keep it going.
And you're about to wake behind them.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'm like, we need to get you help as well.
So, yes, patrescence happens.
So, yeah, this is a conversation about mums and matrescence, but absolutely it affects dads as well.
Yeah, wow.
I'd like to go for another 12 hours.
Yeah.
But we can't.
Let's not.
I've got to go get that tattoo.
You've got to go get your tattoo.
Of course.
You can't be late again for it.
Yeah.
No, you've got to get that done.
E2, this has been amazing.
Absolutely.
I'm just, I'm like.
I'm so grateful I've met you.
I just don't know how the world has – Same here.
Same here for all of you guys, especially you.
You guys are new.
Not that we play favorites, but – We're pretty cool too.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I'll take that.
No, I just – every time I chat to you, I learn so much, but I just feel like that It was so important.
That was crazy.
It's amazing that you guys are talking about this.
We need to have mattresses a bit more.
Yeah, I think we need more episodes.
More episodes, yeah, of mattresses.
We can zoom in on so many different parts of mattresses.
So many parts.
In 10 years when they do another brain scan, we can.
Catch up.
The next conference is in three years.
I'll find, I'll catch, clock something there and bring it back.
Well, now that Patrescence exists, I'm sure they'll be scanning millions of men's brains every year.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
You're amazing.
Thanks, Emma.
Thank you.
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