We know that motherhood is a big change, and not just on a personal, family and social level. During pregnancy, the body adapts to various cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic, renal, and muscular changes. But the brain also undergoes enormous changes. Several recent research studies have analyzed how mothers’ brains prepare to care for a baby. Hormones cause profound changes and trigger an increase in neuroplasticity. This is a similar process to that during adolescence; It’s known as matrescence, a term coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s, and more recently the concept has gained traction.
“Just as adolescence describes a child’s transition to adulthood, matrescence describes a woman’s transition to motherhood. Adolescence and maturation are both steroid hormone-coordinated periods and times of neuroplasticity and mental vulnerability. Furthermore, both are moments of change and adaptation, although what each person experiences individually is very different,” explains neuroscientist Magdalena Martínez García, who works with the neuroimaging groups at Neuromaternal (Madrid) and BeMother (Barcelona). These organizations have conducted pioneering longitudinal studies of the brains of mothers at different time periods, from pregnancy through pregnancy to postpartum. A 2019 study that Martinez participated in showed that the similarities between adolescence and maturity also have a neurobiological basis. “We compared the brain changes in a group of primiparous women and those in a group of adolescent girls. Surprisingly, both groups showed a virtually identical profile of changes, suggesting that adolescence and maturity involve similar neuroplasticity processes and that steroid hormones are important mediators of these changes,” she says.
According to Susanna Carmona Cabañete, clinical psychologist, PhD neuroscientist and leader of the Neuromaternal research group at the Gregorio Marañón Health Research Institute, a woman’s first pregnancy drastically changes her brain. “The brain changes during this vital period are so pronounced that the scientific community currently considers pregnancy to be the stage of greatest brain plasticity in adulthood,” she says. According to the expert, this is a time when the brain is more malleable and adaptable to experience. Hormonal fluctuations and interactions with the baby are behind this improved malleability: “First prepare the brain to become more malleable; The latter put pressure on them to shape them and adapt them to the demands of the new stage.”
Carmona likes the process of pottery and encourages us to think of the brain as a lump of clay just taken out of its packaging, damp and extremely vulnerable to external events as we squeeze and stretch it. “Over time, this clay loses moisture, but also malleability, the ability to adapt. The brain is fixed, the main structure of the sculpture is already formed, and only subtle changes can be made. Until recently it was believed that clay was fired after puberty and remained solid, only subject to wear and tear over time. Today we know that this baking does not happen and that small changes in brain anatomy and function will occur until death,” she explains.
During pregnancy, the mother’s brain becomes malleable again to facilitate adjustment to the tremendous demands of a baby’s arrival. These demands are often at odds with how many women experience moments such as pregnancy, childbirth and of course the postpartum period. “The brain is constantly adapting to both our internal state and our environment. And often the demands of your body clash with your socioeconomic situation, including your family situation and working conditions. We are currently experiencing motherhood in a constant ambivalence between privilege and precariousness,” says Magdalena Martínez.
The neuroscientist’s studies have found that maternal brains continue to change during the postpartum period and therefore remain vulnerable during this time and even several years later. In a 2021 study published in Brain Sciences, the researcher found that a mother’s brain differs from that of a childless woman up to six years after birth. Other studies of adult women (decades after becoming mothers) suggest that pregnancy leaves a lasting imprint on women’s brains.
Take better care of mothers
It is important to protect women during pregnancy to avoid stress and improve recovery. Magdalena Martínez believes that society has traditionally focused on the negative effects of pregnancy and motherhood on women’s cognitive abilities, “to the point where the term mommy brain and momnesia has been normalized in relation to pregnant women.” . Additionally, she believes this type of research serves as a reminder of the tremendous changes in the brain that pregnancy and childbirth bring, and puts into perspective the loss of memory and focus that women can experience.
“These studies have put the spotlight on mothers, the great forgotten ones who often tend to take a backseat to the baby. We need to understand that a good support and care network of family, friends and healthcare professionals is fundamental to the well-being of mothers and their babies,” she adds. Furthermore, if we understand how mothers adapt to these changes in non-pathological ways, “we will understand how we can support those who suffer from mental health disorders such as postpartum depression, which affects 20%,” continues Martínez away mothers.”
How are surrogates affected by these changes? Martínez explains that there are no studies on the brains of these pregnant mothers because she believes it is not in their best interests to study them; However, she thinks it would be interesting to see what short- and long-term effects a deliberate separation from the baby has on her mental and cerebral health after birth. In this context, Susanna Carmona reminds us that the hormonal and immunological changes that occur during pregnancy have a lasting impact on the maternal brain, which can alter the mother’s mental health in the short and long term.
In other words, pregnancy brings about a series of adaptations in the body and brain that appear to last a lifetime and can affect the health of both the pregnant mother and the baby. “Pregnancy is a natural process, but that doesn’t mean we should downplay its impact on a woman’s physiology,” says Carmona. Ibone Olza, psychiatrist and director of the European Institute of Perinatal Mental Health, has pointed out on several occasions the impact that the separation of the mother-child dyad can have on perinatal mental health: “It involves … a series of losses for both , which is why I insist on the need for further research into the consequences of this practice.”
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