SOURCE Peanut

Peanut and Tommee Tippee Launch Global Movement to Put "Matrescence" in the Dictionary, and on the Cultural Map

NEW YORK, Feb. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Peanut, the world's largest community app for moms, and global parent-care brand Tommee Tippee are igniting a global movement to change how the world understands motherhood - starting with one simple demand: recognize the word matrescence.

The campaign, kicking off today with a full-page ad in the New York Times, urges lexicographers, including Merriam-Webster, to add the term and to stop flagging it as a misspelling.

Peanut and Tommee Tippee are calling time on the cultural blind spot that has left generations of mothers without language for one of the most significant transitions of their lives. The brands highlight that when an experience is not named, it is minimized, and isolates the millions of women who experience it.

'Matrescence,' which outlines the physical, psychological, and emotional process of becoming a mother, was coined in 1973 by anthropologist Dana Raphael, the same scholar who introduced the term "doula." For more than five decades, research has confirmed that becoming a mother fundamentally reshapes the brain, body, and identity. And yet, 67% of mothers surveyed by Peanut have never heard the term. Solving the awareness issue starts with recognition.

"For something experienced by so many women, the transition into motherhood has too often gone unspoken," said Anna Howes, Chief Marketing Officer at Tommee Tippee. "Many women don't recognise themselves after becoming a mother because we've never truly had the words to describe that shift. Acknowledging Matrescence finally gives that transformation a name, showing mothers it's not something to quietly endure, but a transformation to be understood, supported, and celebrated. 

From Awareness to Action

The New York Times ad marks the first step in a sustained, international campaign designed to move matrescence from academic circles into everyday conversation and into the dictionary.

The movement will include a public petition calling on dictionary publishers to formally recognize matrescence, along with ongoing advocacy to prevent the word from being marked as a spelling error in digital tools.

Peanut has already facilitated more than 34 million connections globally with a new friendship forming every three seconds, and Tommee Tippee have been trusted by generations of new parents for the last 60 years. Now, they are mobilizing their communities to drive linguistic and cultural change.

"Most women go through the biggest transformation of their lives thinking something is wrong with them because they don't recognize themselves anymore," said Michelle Battersby, President of Peanut. "They have no language for it. They think they're alone. Or their experience is dismissed as 'baby blues,' 'hormones,' or simply'"part of the job.' Getting this word into the dictionary is the first step toward research, funding, and support that mothers have been denied for generations."

Why This Matters Now

When we don't have language for women's experiences, we don't study them. We don't fund them. We don't support them.

The consequences are measurable:

  • Maternal mental health research is drastically underfunded, with untreated perinatal mood and anxiety disorders in the US estimated at 14.2 billion dollars per year.
  • 67% of mothers have never heard the term matrescence and do not know its meaning, leaving them to navigate this transformation without the language to describe what's happening to them.
  • The World Health Organization has identified maternal isolation as a growing public health crisis, with mothers disproportionately affected during the transition to parenthood.

The Science Behind Matrescence

Through pre-conception, pregnancy and birth, surrogacy or adoption, to the postnatal period and beyond:

  • Gray matter decreases in specific brain regions while increasing in others
  • The amygdala enlarges by up to 15%, heightening emotional responses
  • Neural pathways rewire, creating new patterns of thought, behavior, and identity
  • Hormonal surges rival those of puberty and menopause

Matrescence isn't "baby brain" or "mom brain." It's a complete biological, psychological, and social metamorphosis. It changes your brain, it changes your body, it changes your identity, and it transforms you into a mother.

Help us make matrescence mainstream.

About Peanut

Peanut is the leading social network for women, connecting over 5.5 million members across fertility, pregnancy, motherhood, and menopause. Founded in 2017 by Michelle Kennedy, Peanut provides a safe, verified space where women find community, ask questions, and build the support systems modern motherhood often lacks. Named to TIME100's Most Influential Companies, Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, and Apple's Trend of the Year, Peanut is headquartered in London and available globally on iOS and Android.

About Tommee Tippee

For over 60 years, Tommee Tippee has been the Parent-care expert, innovatively engineering products that enhance, empower, and amplify the natural intuition of newborn parents. Where iconic heritage meets intelligent, stylish design, every Tommee Tippee product is built on thousands of hours of expert thinking and real parenting insight.

Trusted by generations of parents across the globe, the brand anticipates problems before they happen and designs easy-to-use products for the moments that matter most.

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