Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood

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I really hope policy makers read this book too, I have immediately given it to my partner as Lucy Jones manages to explain many of my thoughts through matrescence better than myself.

Science based, no woo (rare in a pregnancy/birth book), straightforward and full of the reality of pregnancy, birth and small children. We specialise in hard to find and international magazine titles including Apartamento, L'Étiquette, Popeye and Gentlewoman along with a range of fiction and non-fiction books from a wide range of independent publishers. Excellent multidisciplinary discussion of modern motherhood, weaving together threads of insight from fields as disparate as ecology, economics, human biology, plant and animal biology, politics, psychology, and modern legal and social realities for new mothers.How can this be, Lucy Jones asks, when it is “a transition that involves a whole spectrum of emotional and existential ruptures”? Initially I felt they jarred with the body of the work, which follows Jones’s journey into motherhood and is divided according to a series of themes, including birth, the brain, sleep and society. There is a trap for any critic reviewing books about motherhood who is also a mother: the trap of “this is not how it was for me”. I think had I read this whilst pregnant it would have made me feel rather fearful of early motherhood, whereas I think if you do have a fantastic support network around you, you are able to focus on the more joyous elements of mothering.

I find myself inwardly cheering at one point when another mother describes how “insipid/idealistic portrayals of motherhood made me less interested in it as a young person. However, even if you've had a straightforward birth and received support for childcare, every woman (not just mothers) can relate to the stories in this book. We don’t properly recognise “the psychological and physiological significance of becoming a mother: how it affects the brain, the endocrine system, cognition, immunity, the psyche, the microbiome, the sense of self”.I bought this after hearing Lucy Jones speak on a podcast and so many of her views and experiences of matrescence reflected my own. Around halfway through the book, I kept thinking, ‘please give me the good side that makes this all worth it. She previously worked at NME and the Daily Telegraph, and her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in GQ, BBC Wildlife, The Sunday Times, the Guardian and the New Statesman.

The Times and Telegraph named it a book of the year (2020) and the paperback became a Times' bestseller (2021). The book effectively emphasizes that you are not alone, it's not your fault, and what you're experiencing is entirely normal.I have to say, I wouldn’t read this book until after you’ve become a mum—her birth stories and descriptions of early motherhood and caring for a tiny human may very well put you off of having children! A phrase far too often used, but this is ‘essential reading’ for everyone - not just mothers or fathers or care-givers, but everyone. It is] wide-ranging in its scope, packed with statistics about mental health, new studies on the rewiring of women's brains after childbirth and the presence of foetal cells in our bodies . Moving from the early stages of her pregnancy to her eldest child’s first day at school, she describes how the mother’s brain literally changes shape’.

Absolutely agree we need to value mothers more as a society and I found lots of the scientific information extremely interesting. A radical new examination of the transition into motherhood and how it affects the mind, brain and body. It goes to the very foundational values of our society and how we perceive and value the vital work of raising the next generation. I would advise against reading it during pregnancy if you're someone who prefers to focus on the positive side of things.Her first book, Foxes Unearthed, was celebrated for its 'brave, bold and honest' (Chris Packham) account of our relationship with the fox, winning the Society of Authors' Roger Deakin Award 2015.