Far from the gentle time off it’s billed as, the reality of maternity leave can be scary, lonely and destabilising

When I started to approach my second maternity leave, five years after the first, my main feeling was not excitement or freedom but dread. That low, leaden kind of panic, which grew inside me alongside my son’s new fingernails and feet. I’m thinking about it again, another five years on once more, as Radio 4’s Emma Barnett publishes Maternity Service, a book centred around the idea that maternity leave has never been accurately titled. Instead of the holiday it’s billed as, she writes, it’s hard work. It’s “a period of leave from all you know: taking leave of one’s mind, body, job and relationships”. And it’s a period that “doesn’t end when or if you return to work. It’s just the start”.

I felt, back then, if not quite shame, then certainly, a sharp awkwardness describing my fears of maternity leave as my due-date neared. Because, really, I had it good. The fact I had maternity leave at all, and a job to come back to, felt like a privilege. In the UK up to 74,000 women lose their job each year for getting pregnant or taking maternity leave, a figure (reported by campaign groups Pregnant Then Screwed and Women In Data) up from 54,000 a decade ago. In America, women get no federal paid leave, no guaranteed financial support and no universal services. But beyond the practical, there is the idea that this is meant to be a simple and beautiful time.