Waiting to feel like yourself again

We have a detailed script for a baby's first year. Milestones, percentiles, what to expect each month, a whole industry tracking the development of one person in the room.

There's nothing equivalent for the mother. She's expected to emerge from the same year essentially unchanged, only tired, and to recognise herself at the end of it.

Almost half of new parents say they no longer recognise themselves. There's a word for the change a mother goes through, matrescence, but it's telling how rarely anyone has heard of the term, uses it, or understands what it means.