09/09/2026
A friend asked me the other day when I thought postpartum ended, what I told her seemed to genuinely surprise her and I wonder how many others are wondering the same without thinking about what that question really means. In no way word for word (because 5 years on from my first birth 'mum brain' is still a thing!) this is what I told her...
I don't believe postpartum ends at six weeks.
Or six months.
Or even two years.
Postpartum is not simply a period of physical recovery after birth; it is the beginning of a lifelong 'becoming'.
Matrescence (the transition to motherhood) is monumental and lifelong. It reshapes your body, identity, relationships and priorities. It changes your sense of time, your understanding of love, and your very sense of self.
And unlike a pregnancy, there is no 'due-date' for when you'll feel like you've truly become a mother - you meet your baby at birth, but you continue meeting yourself as their mother for the rest of your life.
As your child grows, so do you - the mother of a newborn is not the same mother of a toddler, the mother of a child just starting school is not the same mother of a teenager, and the mother of an adult child is not the same woman who first held them in her arms. Every new stage asks something different of you, each version of your child calls forth a new version of you.
There are births within the birth; moments when you realise that the mother you were yesterday is no longer the mother your child needs today.
Postpartum is not something we leave behind, it is a state of being that begins when we become a parent and continues, in different forms, for as long as we are here, even if our child is not. Motherhood is not a chapter it is a lifelong relationship with a constant 'becoming'. Postpartum by its very definition means 'after birth' and is that not what mothers are for the rest of their lives?
At the root, this is why I believe mothers deserve care, tenderness, witnessing and support long after society decides they should be 'back to normal'.
There is no going back. There is only the 'becoming'. Postpartum is forever π€