重新思考从女人到母亲的转变

A new way to think about the transition to motherhood

分段翻译

Part 1 翻译

Do you remember a time when you felt hormonal and moody? You skin was breaking out, your body was growing in strange places and very fast, and at the same time, people were expecting you to be growing-up in this new way. Teenagers, right?

你是否记得某个时刻曾感到心情烦躁或郁郁寡欢？你的皮肤上正冒出小痘痘，身体的特殊部位开始发育并快速成长，与此同时，大人们也正期待你以这种方式长大。说的就是青少年，对吧？

Well, these same changes happen to a woman when she's having a baby. And we know that it's normal for teenagers to feel all over the place, so why don't we talk about pregnancy in the same way?

其实，女人怀孕时也会发生同样的变化，我们知道青少年感到困惑和敏感很正常，我们何不以同样的方式谈论怀孕呢？

There are entire textbooks written about the developmental arc of adolescence, and we don't even have a word to describe the transition to motherhood. We need one.

市面上有成套的关于青春期发展曲线的教科书，而我们甚至没有一个描述由女人变成母亲的术语。我们需要这样一个词汇。

I'm a psychiatrist who works with pregnant and postpartum women, a reproductive psychiatrist, and in the decade that I've been working in this field, I've noticed a pattern.

我是一名与孕妇和产妇打交道的精神科医生，即生殖心理医生，在这个领域工作的十年里，我注意到了一个模式。

It gose something like this: a woman calls me up, she's just had a baby, and she's concerned. She says, "I'm not good at this. I'm not enjoy this. Do I have postpartum depression?" So I go through the symptoms of that diagnosis, and it's clear to me that she's not clinically depressed, and I tell her that. But she isn't reassured. "It isn't supposed to feel like this," she insists. So I say, "OK. What did you expect it to feel like?" She says, "I thought motherhood would make me feel whole and happy. I thought my instincts would naturally tell me what to do. I thought I'd always want to put the baby first."

一般是这样的：一位女士打来电话，她刚生了孩子，而且感到很忧虑。他说：“我不擅长养孩子，也不开心。我是否得了产后抑郁症”？接下来我仔细分析了诊断的症状，很明显她没得临床抑郁症，我告诉了她诊断结果。但她依然不放心，“我不该有这样得感觉”，她坚称。因此我说道“好吧，那你认为应该是怎样得感觉呢？”她说：“我曾认为当了母亲会让我感到完整和快乐，本能自然而然就会告诉我该怎么做，我曾经也以为自己总想着把孩子放在首位。”

This -- this is an unrealistic expectation of what the transition to motherhood feels like. And it wasn't just her. I was getting calls with questions like this from hundreds of women, all concerned that something was wrong, because they couldn't measure up. And I didn't know how to help them, because telling them that they weren't sick wasn't making them feel better.

这种感觉——这是对从女人转变成母亲得不切实际得期望。无独有偶，我接到过几百位有类似问题得女士打来的电话，他们都不约而同的担心自己出了问题，因为她们无法达到自己的期望值。我不知道如何帮助他们，因为告诉了她们没得病的事实并没有让她们感到轻松。

I wanted to find a way to normalize this transition, to explain that discomfort is not always the same thing as disease. So I set out to learn more about the psychology of motherhood. But there actually wasn't much in the medical textbooks, because doctors mostly write about disease.

我想找到一种让这种转变更加正常的方法，能解释这种心理不适与疾病其实是两码事。所以我开始学习更多关于母性心理的知识，但医学课本对此却鲜有提及，因为医生们大部分写的是关于疾病的知识。

So I turned to anthropology. And it took me two years, but in an out-of-print essay written in 1973 by Dana Raphael, I finally found a helpful way to frame this conversation: matrescence.

于是我转向人类学寻找答案，花了两年的时间，在一篇丹娜·拉斐尔写于1973年的绝版文章中，我终于找到了一个有效的方式来概况这段对话：从女人到母亲的过程（孕乳期）。

It's not a coincidence that "matrescence" sound like "adolescence." Both are times when body morphing and hormone shifting, lead to upheaval in how person feels emotionally and how they fit into the world. And like adolescence, matrescence is not a disease, since doctors aren't educating people about it, it's being confused with a more serious condition called postpartum depression.

孕乳期听起来很像青春期，但这并非巧合。两种情况都是由体型改变和体内激素的变化作用所致，这两种因素造成人在情绪感受及如何融入生活方面发生剧变。和青春期一样，孕乳期不是病，但因为这一改变并不存在于医学词汇中，医生也没教给人们这方面的知识，所以人们将孕乳期的现象和更严重的产后抑郁症混为一谈。

Part 1 生词统计

单词	音标	翻译
hormone	ˈhɔːrmoʊn	n. [生理]激素、荷尔蒙
moody	ˈmuːdi	adj. 喜怒无常的、易怒的、郁郁寡欢的
arc	ɑːrk	n. 弧度、弧形物、天穹； v. 形成电弧、走弧线
adolescent	ˌædəˈlesnt	adj. 青春期的、未成熟得； n. 青少年
psychiatrist	saɪˈkaɪətrɪst	n. 精神病学家、精神病医生
postpartum	,post'pɑrtəm	adj. 产后的、产后用得
reproductive	ˌriːprəˈdʌktɪv	adj. 生殖的、再生的、复制的
depress	dɪˈpres	v. 压抑、使沮丧、使萧条
symptom	ˈsɪmptəm	n. [临床]症状、征兆
diagnosis	ˌdaɪəɡˈnoʊsɪs	n. 诊断
clinical	ˈklɪnɪkl	adj. 临床的、诊所的
psychology	saɪˈkɑːlədʒi	n. 心理学、心理状态
anthropology	ˌænθrəˈpɑːlədʒi	n. 人类学
essay	ˈeseɪ	n. 散文、试图、随笔； v. 尝试、对...做实验
matrescence	--	从女人到母亲的过程（孕乳期）
coincidence	koʊˈɪnsɪdəns	n. 巧合、一致、同时发生
morphing	'mɔrfɪŋ	n. 变形
upheaval	ʌpˈhiːvl	n. 剧变、隆起、举起
serious	ˈsɪriəs	adj. 严肃的、严重的、认真的、庄重的

Part 2 翻译

I've been building on the anthropology literature and have been talking about matrescence with my patients, using a concept called the "push and pull."

我一直在人类学文献的基础上，使用“推和拉”的概念，和病人谈关于孕乳期的问题。

Here's the pull part. So as humans, our babies are uniquely dependent. Unlike other animals, our babies can't walk, they can't feed themselves, they're very hard to take care of.

“拉”的部分是这样的：我们人类的婴儿特别依赖他人。和其他物种不同的是，我们的婴儿不会走路、不能自己吃饭，照顾他们特别费心。

So evolution has helped us out with this hormone called oxytocin. It's released around childbirth, and also during skin-to-skin touch, so it rises even if you didn't give birth to the baby.

所以进化过程中出现了一种叫催产素的激素来帮助我们解决这个难题。分娩时，身体会释放催产素，（与婴儿）身体接触时也会释放催产素。所以，即使你没在生孩子，身体也会分泌催产素。

Oxytocin helps a huaman mother's brain zoom in, pulling her attention in, so that the baby is now at the center of her world. But at the same time, her mind is push away, because she remembers there are all these other parts to her identity -- other relationships, her work, hobbies, a spiritual and intellectual life, not to mention physical needs: to sleep, to eat, to exercise, to have sex, to go to the bathroom, alone -- if possible.

催产素帮助人类母亲的大脑集中精力、把她的注意力“拉”过来，让宝宝成为她当下世界的中心。但与此同时，理智把她从宝宝身上“推”开，因为她想起来自己还有其他的身份——其他各种关系，工作、爱好、精神和知性生活，更不必说生理需要了：睡觉、吃饭、运动、有性生活、去洗手间，一个人做以上的事情，如果可能的话。

This is the emotinal tug-of-war of matrescence. This is the tension the women calling me were feeling. It's why they thought they were sick.

这就是孕乳期的情感纠葛，这就是给我打电话的女士们所感受到的不安，这就是为什么她们认为自己生病了。

If women understood the natural progression of matrescence, if they knew that most people found it hard to live inside this push and pull, if they knew that under these circumstances, ambivalence was normal and nothing to be ashamed of, they would feel less alone, they would feel less stigmatized, and I think it would even reduce rates of postpartum depression.

如果女性们已经知晓了孕乳期的自然发展过程，如果她们知道大多数人很难在这种“推和拉”的矛盾中生活，如果她们已然知晓：在这种情况下，矛盾心理是正常的，没什么可感到羞愧的。她们就不会那么孤单无助，也会少一些自责，我认为做到这一点甚至会降低产后抑郁症的发病率。

I'd love to study that one day. I'm a believer in talk therapy, so if we're going to chagne the way our culture understands this transition to motherhood, women need to be talking to each other, not just me.

我很乐意有一天能研究这个课题。我信奉话聊治疗法，所以如果我们要改变我们的文化中对女人转变为母亲的看法，女人们需要相互交谈，而不仅仅是与我交流。

So mothers, talk about your matrescence, with other mothers, with your friends, and if you have one, with your partner, so that they can understand their own transition and better support you. But it's not just about protecting your relationship. When you preserve a separate part of your identity, you're also leaving room for your child to develop their own.

所以妈妈们，跟其他母亲谈论你的孕乳期感受吧，也可以和朋友交流，如果有条件的话，也要和伴侣交流自己的感受，这样他们也能知晓自己的角色转变，从而更支持你。但这不仅仅是为了保护你和周围人的关系，当你保留你身份中独立部分的同时，你也为孩子留出了自我发展的空间。

When a baby is born, so is a mother, each unsteady in their own way. Matrescence is profound, but it's also hard, and that's what makes it human.

当婴儿降临时，母亲也会获得新生，母子二人都踉跄着探索自己脚下的路，孕乳期意义深远，但也很艰难，也正是这一点造就了人类。

Part 2 生词统计

单词	音标	翻译
oxytocin	,ɒksɪ'təʊsɪn	n. [药]催产素、缩宫素、脑下垂体后叶荷尔蒙
spirit	ˈspɪrɪt	n. 精神、心灵、情绪、志气、烈酒； v. 鼓励、鼓舞、诱拐
intellect	ˈɪntəlekt	n. 智力、理解力、知识分子、智力高的人
tension	ˈtenʃn	n. 张力、拉力、紧张、不安、电压
ambivalent	æmˈbɪvələnt	adj. 矛盾的、好恶相克的
stigmatize	ˈstɪɡmətaɪz	v. 污蔑、玷污、给...打上烙印
therapy	ˈθerəpi	n. 治疗、疗法

原文阅读

Do you remember a time when you felt hormonal and moody? You skin was breadking out, your body was growing in strange places and very fast, and at the same time, people were expecting you to be growing-up in this new way. Teenagers, right?

Well, these same changes happen to a woman when she's having a baby. And we know that it's normal for teenagers to feel all over the place, so why don't we talk about pregnancy in the same way?

There are entire textbooks written about the developmental arc of adolescence, and we don't even have a word to describe the transition to motherhood. We need one.

I'm a psychiatrist who works with pregnant and postpartum women, a reproductive psychiatrist, and in the decade that I've been working in this field, I've noticed a pattern.

It goes something like this: a woman calls me up, she's just had a baby, and she's concerned. She says, "I'm not good at this. I'm not enjoy this. Do I have postpartum depression?" So I go through the symptoms of that diagnosis, and it's clear to me that she's not clinically depressed, and I tell her that. But she isn't reassured. "It isn't supposed to feel like this," she insists. So I say, "OK. What did you expect it to feel like?" She says, "I thought motherhood would make me feel whole and happy. I thought my instincts would naturally tell me what to do. I thought I'd always want to put the baby first."

This -- this is an unrealistic expectation of what the transition to motherhood feels like. And it wasn't just her. I was getting calls with questions like this from hundreds of women, all concerned that something was wrong, because they couldn't measure up. And I didn't know how to help them, because telling them that they weren't sick wasn't making them feel better.

I wanted to find a way to normalize this transition, to explain that discomfort is not always the same thing as disease. So I set out to learn more about the psychology of motherhood. But there actually wasn't much in the medical textbooks, because doctors mostly write about disease.

So I turned to anthropology. And it took me two years, but in an out-of-print essay written in 1973 by Dana Raphael, I finally found a helpful way to frame this conversation: matrescence.

It's not a coincidence that "matrescence" sounds like "adolescence." Both are times when body morphing and hormone shifting, lead to upheaval in how person feels emotionally and how they fit into the world. And like adolescence, matrescence is not a disease, but since it's not in the medical vocabulary, since doctors aren't educating people about it, it's being confused with a more serious condition called postpartum depression.

I've been building on the anthropology literature and have been talking about matrescence with my patients, using a concept called the "push and pull."

Here's the pull part. So as humans, our babies are uniquely dependent. Unlike other animals, our babies can't walk, they can't feed themselves, they're very hard to take care of.

So evolution has helped us out with this hormone called oxytocin. It's released around childbirth, and also during skin-to-skin touch, so it rises even if you didn't give birth to the baby.

Oxytocin helps a human mother's brain zoom in, pulling her attention in, so that the baby is now at the center of her world. But at the same time, her mind is pushing away, because she remembers there are all these other parts to her indentity -- other relationships, her work, hobbies, a spiritual and intellectual life, not to mention physical needs: to sleep, to eat, to exercise, to have sex, to go to the bathroom, alone -- if possible.

This is the emotional tug-of-war of matrescence. This is the tension the women calling me were feeling. It's why they thought they were sick.

If women understood the natural progression of matrescence, if they knew that most people found it hard to live inside this push and pull, if they knew that under these circumstances, ambivalence was normal and nothing to be ashamed of, they would feel less alone, they would feel less stigmatized, and I think it would even reduce rates of postpartum depression.

I'd love to study that one day. I'm a believer in talk therapy, so if we're going to change the way our culture understands this transition to motherhood, women need to be talking to each other, not just me.

So mothers, talk about your matrescence, with other mothers, with your friends, and if you have one, with your partner, so that they can understand their own transition and better support you. But it's not just about protecting your relationship. When you preserve a separate part of your identity, you're also leaving room for your child to develop their own.

When a baby is born, so is a mother, each unsteady in their own way. Matrescence is profound, but it's also hard, and that's what makes it human.