Women Who Inspire Us: Steph Claire Smith and Laura Henshaw on Matrescence, Movement and Metamorphosis
The KIC Founders discuss the profound impact of motherhood on transforming their identities, ambitions and relationship with movement.
Motherhood is often framed as a beginning — the arrival of a child, the start of a new chapter. Increasingly, though, psychologists and writers describe it as something closer to transformation. The word for it is matrescence: the physical, emotional, and psychological transition into motherhood, a process many now compare to adolescence in its scale of physical impact on the body.
For Steph Claire Smith and Laura Henshaw, the concept offers a language for a shift they were already experiencing. The Melbourne-based founders of wellness platform KIC have spent the past decade encouraging women to rethink their relationship with movement, food and self-worth. Now, both navigating early motherhood themselves — Steph for the second time, Laura for the first — that philosophy is evolving again. Not in theory, but in real time.
Henshaw first encountered the concept while reading Lucy Jones's book Matrescence before the birth of her son Atlas. It was (deliberately) the only book she read in preparation for motherhood, but it proved to be an unexpectedly grounding one. "Matrescence is essentially the transition into motherhood and how it affects our mind, brain and body," she explains. "I read the book before Atlas was born, and it helped me understand what was happening scientifically — how our brains actually rewire when we become parents."
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That neurological shift, she says, reframed experiences that might otherwise have felt unsettling. Understanding the science behind motherhood didn't make the process simple, but it helped her contextualise the intensity of it. "One thing that really stuck with me was intrusive thoughts," she says. "I used to have anxiety earlier in life, and I was prepared for that to come back when I became a mum. But reading about how your brain becomes more protective of your child helped me understand why those thoughts can happen. I could separate that from myself and think, 'Okay, my brain is doing this because it's trying to protect my baby.'"
The book also made something else clear: that motherhood is rarely the singular, all-encompassing identity people expect it to be. Instead, it tends to expand a person's sense of purpose rather than replace it. Before Atlas arrived, Henshaw says much of her identity was tied to her career. Building KIC alongside Smith had been the defining project of her adult life, and she worried that motherhood might fundamentally alter that drive.
"I think for a long time my main purpose in life was my career," she says. "I'd come to terms with that being a really big part of my identity, and I was actually quite scared of losing it." Instead, she found that motherhood didn't displace that ambition so much as widen it. "I still feel like that career person," she says. "But my purpose has expanded. It now also includes caring for Atlas and loving him. And something I didn't expect was contentment — that feeling is something I realise I'd never really experienced before becoming a mum."
For Smith, mum to son Harvey (four) and Billie (nine months),who has spoken candidly online and on the KICBump podcast about the realities of parenting, matrescence has also reshaped her relationship with movement. Before children, workouts followed the sort of structured routines familiar to many in the fitness world — longer sessions, consistent programming and clearly defined goals. "My routine just can't look how it used to," she says. "Some days it's a five- or ten-minute Pilates class on the mat while Harvey's watching Bluey and Billie's crawling around on the floor. That's just the reality of this stage of life."
At other times, movement becomes something shared rather than solitary. Recently, she went for her first run with both children in tow — Billie in a pram, while Harvey rode alongside on his bike. It was less about performance than about proving something to herself. "I just needed to know it was possible," she says. "Of course it won't look like that every time, but being able to do it once felt really empowering."
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The shift has also expanded her motivations. While she still values the physical benefits of exercise, she is increasingly aware of the example she is setting. "It's really important to me that Harvey grows up seeing movement as a normal part of life," she says. "I was very into sports growing up and it gave me so much confidence and connection with other people. You can't mould your children into who you want them to be, but I do hope my relationship with movement sparks that curiosity in him."
Henshaw's own relationship with movement is entering a new chapter as well. A committed runner who completed the New York Marathon in 2024, she found that pregnancy temporarily erased the desire to run altogether. "While I was pregnant I would see people running and think, 'I must be allergic to running,'" she says, laughing. "I just couldn't imagine doing it."
Now, twelve weeks postpartum, the urge is slowly returning. That process has become part of the inspiration behind KIC's newest program, Run for Joy, an eight-week running challenge developed in partnership with New Balance that encourages participants to focus less on pace or distance and more on reconnecting with the enjoyment of movement."I love that the challenge is centred around joy," she says. "That's really what I want to rediscover in my own running journey."
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Hers will begin with the program's postpartum pathway, a physio-designed training plan that builds safely from zero to three kilometres over eight weeks. "[KICRun Postpartum] is designed for returning to running after having a baby," she explains. "Your body goes through so many changes, so it's really important to ease back into it in a safe way."
The logistics of fitting exercise into daily life now require a little more planning than they once did. "I can't just head out the door whenever I want anymore," she says. "My husband and I are actually writing out the schedule together so that time is protected. Otherwise it's very easy for the days to just go by."
That negotiation between ambition and adaptability is something both founders recognise from another part of their lives as well. Building a business in their twenties meant navigating uncertainty, setbacks and the constant pressure of public scrutiny — experiences that Smith believes have unexpectedly prepared them for motherhood."There are similarities between leadership and being a founder and motherhood," she reflects. "You face challenges and hurdles that force you to build confidence and resilience. In that sense, the experience of growing a business has definitely helped."
At the same time, motherhood has reshaped how she approaches leadership itself. The arrival of children has sharpened her empathy and expanded her understanding of the experiences people carry into work and life. "It's given me more compassion and curiosity about what people might be going through," she says. "I think having a child just opens your eyes to so many different perspectives."
In many ways, the evolution mirrors the trajectory of KIC itself. What began in 2015 (named 'Keep It Cleaner' at the time) as a 'clean' eating recipe e-book has gradually expanded into a broader wellness ecosystem encompassing movement, mindfulness, sleep, mindset and community. The philosophy behind it has always been that wellbeing should feel supportive rather than prescriptive, something that adapts alongside the lives of the people using it.
Motherhood, in that sense, represents simply another season in the same ongoing journey. Wellness is no longer about rigid routines or aesthetic outcomes but about flexibility, resilience and the freedom to redefine what strength looks like at different stages of life.
For Smith and Henshaw, that season currently includes prams, nap schedules and the occasional Pilates session squeezed into a living-room floor between episodes of Bluey. Yet the underlying philosophy that built their business remains intact. Movement should feel joyful, ambition should coexist with compassion, and growth — whether in business, identity or motherhood — is rarely linear.
Enrolments for the New Balance x KICRun challenge are now open via the KICApp, with the first session beginning on Monday, 9 March. For more on KIC, visit kicwellness.com.
Images: Supplied
