The Reluctant Earth Mother

I never found my glasses in the fridge, or the milk next to the toilet but my brain did close down to the outside world. I stopped listening to the news, had no interest in making conversation and listened to the oddly comforting voice of Bill Nighy in Charles Paris almost round the clock. Annoyingly, the instinct to clean never kicked in with either pregnancy but second time round, the need to make the spare bedroom just right was foremost in mind. 

My mum went onto MAT leave at 26ish weeks. This was partly because of her health, partly because of her job but mostly because 40 years ago, that was the norm. I started maternity leave at 40 weeks. By 36 weeks, I couldn’t see numbers. I’m a data analyst, it’s fundamental to my work. Trouble is, I also wanted a year with my, in the world, baby so 40 weeks it was. 

Clearly, lack of sleep has a major role to play. In the third trimester, baby is taking up so much room in your abdomen that your bladder feels like it’s shrunk to the size of a pea, coupled with an overworked pelvic floor, night time exertions are all too often plus your body just isn’t a comfortable place to exist in. All this makes good sleep a luxury. Consequently, memory worsens as does general cognitive function (Wołyńczyk-Gmaj, 2022). However, there is more going on. Women’s brains are literally going through a make-over thanks to the huge exposure to oestrogen and progesterone: more than we see over our entire lives in one hit. 

There are 2 types of matter in the brain: grey and white. Grey matter does the stuff and white matter seems to connect the bits that do the stuff. Grey matter in the brain decreases during pregnancy then seems to rebound after birth whilst white matter becomes more concentrated. My first thought on reading this was about caterpillars turning into goo in their cocoons and emerging as butterflies. It’s more than likely that this brain remodelling project is preparing the mother for parenthood, prepping the brain to meet and recognise her baby’s needs (Pritschet, 2024).

Matter decreases but connectivity increases so while maternal brains technically shrink, they become much more efficient at what they’re doing. This pruning process also happens during puberty and like puberty, these changes persist for years. This does happen to dads too; the more involved in caregiving, the quicker the changes occur. It’s frustrating that this invaluable process is dismissed as “mum brain” and not as the eye-opening/watering process of matrescence (Rakusen, 2024). 

I think we have this absurd notion in our heads that becoming a parent shouldn’t change anything. The fact that nearly all of us think it suggests that it’s societal and not us embodying this impossibility as individuals. Having children is what we are meant to do. It’s literally the nature of nature. Of course our focus shifts! We are supposed to reproduce and then nurture the results of that until they reach adulthood and can repeat the cycle. Because we’re human, there are exceptions to the rule; we don’t just run on instinct alone, in fact we try extremely hard to fight instinct every day. Don’t most people yearn to be out in the sun doing very little other than maintaining a full belly? Early parenthood really brings it home that we are just animals after all. 

Pritschet L, Taylor CM, Cossio D, Faskowitz J, Santander T, Handwerker DA, Grotzinger H, Layher E, Chrastil ER, Jacobs EG. Neuroanatomical changes observed over the course of a human pregnancy. Nat Neurosci. 2024 Nov;27(11):2253-2260. doi: 10.1038/s41593-024-01741-0. Epub 2024 Sep 16. PMID: 39284962; PMCID: PMC11537970.

Rakusen, I. (2025). “Mother Brain”. Child. 25th July. [Podcast]. Available at https://ww. [Accessed 12th March 2026].

Wołyńczyk-Gmaj D, Majewska A, Bramorska A, Różańska-Walędziak A, Ziemka S, Brzezicka A, Gmaj B, Czajkowski K, Wojnar M. Cognitive Function Decline in the Third Trimester of Pregnancy Is Associated with Sleep Fragmentation. J Clin Med. 2022 Sep 23;11(19):5607. doi: 10.3390/jcm11195607. PMID: 36233473; PMCID: PMC9573284.