In 2017, we’ve arguably never had more information at our fingertips about what to expect if we’re expecting – and yet there are certain aspects of motherhood that are still rarely talked about. One of these is the crushing loneliness that can set in when you go on maternity leave, particularly if you are the first of your friends to have a child.

Rebecca Maberly is the co-founder of A Mother Place, a website that provides new mothers with online antenatal classes and comprehensive, warm and witty answers to health-related questions. She has two sons, aged six and four, and says she thinks we should talk more about how isolating the first few months of motherhood can be.

“For me, the physical recovery from giving birth was fine; I was back into my jeans quite quickly, which felt very important at the time,” she says. “But mentally I was just in complete shock about the change in my life and the change in my priorities. Being alone with the baby for 24 hours a day was very intense, and very difficult at times.”

Samantha Silver agrees. The beauty editor is co-founder of parenting, fashion and beauty site This Is Mothership, has a two-year-old son and is pregnant with her second child, and says she wasn’t prepared for how lonely she would feel immediately after becoming a mother.

“I was one of the first of my friends to have a baby, so I didn’t really have anyone to be checking in with about what was normal,” she says. “I found the first three months [after my son was born] really, really difficult.”

Silver attended some NCT classes, which are partly designed to help new mothers make friends. But says she found it difficult to connect with any of the women in her class.

“The only thing I had in common with the women [at NCT] was the birth date of our babies,” she says. “When it came to six weeks after having the babies, we weren’t really on the same wavelength and we didn’t have that much to talk about.”

We need to talk about the link between new motherhood and loneliness