How can motherhood be so revered and yet so penalised? Why are so many women still coming away from the early years reeling, unable to process the totality of the change to their life?

Rather than telling them to get over it and move on, Karen Pickering would like to say to them, 'You're right. It's monumental. It affects so many different elements of your life and your experience of the world. It's dangerous. It's not valued socially, culturally or economically. It's not your imagination or all in your head or something you can just push through without leaving lasting damage. I believe you. I don't think you brought this on yourself when you decided to have children. I don't think it's your fault. I want you to feel seen and heard, and then I want us to fight like hell to change it.'

The Mother of All Shocks casts a forensic eye over the transition to motherhood and examines the cost to women: physically, emotionally, and psychologically, professionally, financially and economically, socially, sexually and romantically.

Woven through with memoir and storytelling, this thought-provoking examination will blow the lid off one of our most widely experienced social blind spots - and provide a rallying call for change.