Pregnancy, Postpartum & Matrescence Support: Navigate Motherhood, Mood, and Mental Health

You're a few weeks or months into motherhood and something feels off. You don't feel like yourself. You're grieving something you can't quite name. You love your baby but you're not sure you love your life right now. And the question that keeps circling at 3am is: is something wrong with me? The two most common explanations you'll come across are Postnatal Depression (PND) and - if you've been lucky enough to stumble across the term - matrescence. But what's the difference, a

Matrescence was coined by Anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s. It is the name given to the transition all women go through when they become a mother. Just like adolescence, when we are children becoming teenagers, the changes are remarkably similar , everything shifts hormonally, physically and emotionally, and just like adolescence, we never go back to who we were before. We have changed. And like adolescence, this is not something that needs to be fixed. It should not

When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. Not just because of the pregnancy itself, but because the moment I told my daughter's dad, he left. Just like that, I was alone. I want to talk about solo pregnancy today — not the glossy, "you've got this mama" version you see on Instagram, but the real, raw, complicated version. The one where you're lying awake at 3am wondering how you're going to do this. The one where you're watching other couples at antenatal appointments

You’re standing in the bathroom, staring at the test. Your mind is racing. Then it appears, two lines, or a cross in my case, and suddenly it hits you: “I’m going to be a mum.” For a moment, everything stops, and then just as quickly, everything changes. This moment is often imagined in a certain way, what it will feel like, who you’ll tell first, how happy you’ll be, but for many women, it’s far more complicated than that. Even if this is something you’ve been hoping for, it

When working with mums, I always talk about the importance of self care. I get it, it’s so difficult for a new mum to look after herself when she has a newborn to care for. Neglecting yourself and your self care practices will lead to burn out and exhaustion, so how about looking for pockets of time, such as when baby sleeps or if your partner takes baby out or feeds baby. It doesn’t always have to take up a lot of time in your day, but using these moments to do something for

What crosses your mind during a HG pregnancy Many women suffering from HG are struggling mentally too. You are not alone if this is you. Women suffering with HG often talk about how their mental health has took a dive when dealing with this awful condition. We see all over social media, our friends and family about how amazing and beautiful pregnancy is. True, it’s a beautiful miracle but pregnancy isn’t the experience some women expect it to be. This brings a lot of guilt a