Ed Davey invited Mum Love and a group of local mums to come together for a coffee morning and discussion about the realities of motherhood, maternity care, and the support women need before and after birth.
The conversation was open, honest and deeply relatable. Mums shared their own experiences of loneliness, identity changes, exhaustion, and the pressure to appear to be coping. We spoke about how little time women often get to talk about how they are really feeling, and how much more support is needed during the emotional transition into motherhood.
Georgie, founder of Mum Love, spoke movingly about why she created the organisation after experiencing the emotional impact of motherhood herself. She described how Mum Love is focused on identity support for mums, emotional wellbeing, and creating a sense of community at a time when many women feel isolated. She explained that the goal is to make sure no mum feels like she has to go through this transition alone, and that simple reassurance, shared stories, and accessible support can make a huge difference.
A major theme of the morning was the gap between physical maternity care and emotional support. Jayne Marie, a midwife with nearly 30 years’ experience, spoke powerfully about the pressures facing maternity services. She explained that midwives are increasingly working in a risk-focused system, with too little time and staffing to provide the kind of relationship-based care women need. She highlighted the decline in health visiting support, the loss of the more flexible antenatal and postnatal contact women used to receive, and the fact that many women are now discharged with only minimal follow-up. Jayne also stressed that midwives want to provide better care, but are simply not being facilitated to do so.
She also spoke about the impact of a system that can feel too tick-box driven, where consultations are often rushed and women are expected to answer quickly and move on before they have had the chance to truly say how they are feeling. This can leave mums feeling unseen, unheard and reluctant to speak up about their emotional wellbeing — especially when they are already exhausted, anxious, or worried about being judged.
Sophie Mauder spoke about another part of the journey that is often overlooked: returning to work. Drawing on her own experience and her work supporting parents through parental transition, she explained that many women lose confidence during maternity leave and struggle with the shift back into professional life. She described how businesses often do not know how to support returning mothers, and how much of this comes down to better communication, training and understanding that women do not return unchanged — they return with new skills, perspectives and needs.
Tara Matthews also shared a very personal perspective on how hard the early months of motherhood can be. She spoke about having her first baby while living abroad, without close family or friends nearby, and how isolating and exhausting that experience was. Tara described how even with support around her, the first year felt incredibly difficult, and how much she benefited from having access to a charity and an antenatal community. She also reflected on the value of structured support for people returning to work after a break, saying that programmes like these should be far more widely available for parents and carers alike.
Olivia, a doctor and the owner of The Mum Club Sevenoaks, also shared her experience of running mums’ events and building a space where women can connect with one another. She spoke about how valuable it is for mums to have somewhere to go, meet others at a similar stage, and feel less isolated during maternity leave. Her perspective highlighted just how important community and connection are for mothers at every stage.
Ed also spoke about the importance of awareness around maternal identity change, describing it as something that is both common and deeply under-recognised. He said that it is a simple and fixable issue if women are given the right information at the right time, and if the conversation starts much earlier in pregnancy and continues after birth.
He also spoke about the role of government in improving support for families, including paternity and parental leave. As he said in the discussion: “I developed the shared parental leave policy.”
That point helped underline the wider need for family-friendly policy that supports both mothers and fathers during the transition into parenthood.
We also talked about the importance of raising awareness of matrescence — the transition into motherhood — and making this information easier for women to find through NHS resources, the Red Book, and maternity education. There was a strong sense that this is a fixable issue if the right conversations, training and support are put in place.
