Saying she was “couldn’t afford to live”, Freya took a part-time job as a data researcher, assured she would be able to claim 85% of childcare costs back from the government. Unfortunately, she wasn’t aware that the first childcare invoice had to be paid by her, and then eventually reimbursed. “I had to come up with £700 I didn’t have,” she said. “I had to beg and borrow to make that first payment.”

Even through Freya would like to work more, she knows her benefits and childcare payments will stop if she increases her hours and income, leaving her unable to afford childcare while she worked. “I’m stuck in a position of having to constantly be on benefits and I don’t know how I will get out of that loop,” she said. “I’m trapped, helpless. I feel like people perceive me as lazy, a scrounger. I don’t want to be on benefits, but I don’t have an option.”

In the recent mini-budget proposed by Liz Truss’s newly formed government, it was announced part-time workers face benefit cuts if they don’t look for more work. The proposed policy will disproportionately impact mothers who work part-time as they can’t afford childcare costs and do the majority of unpaid labour in homes.

Although Pregnant Then Screwed is under no illusion that a protest will immediately change the situation, it is expecting a long-term impact from the message that thousands of angry woman and men will communicate by taking to the streets to demand action.

“A protest communicates a credible threat,” said Brearley. “It says we are organised, we are angry and we will not stand for this. It signals to those in power that if they want to be re-elected then they better act on this issue. But more importantly, a protest focuses the public’s attention on a specific issue. In this case, there are large swathes of the public who don’t understand the specific challenges parents face and neither do they care. This is our chance to change their mind, to show them that this is an issue that affects us all because it makes us all poorer. If we can get the general public onside, then the government is forced to act.”

After only three months on maternity leave with her youngest child, Jessica Cockerill and her husband made the decision that she would have to return to work as the £150 she was getting each week was just not enough to cover their basic expenses.

“By this time, all of our bills started to increase as well,” the 38-year-old said. “First it was our electricity and gas, then water, council rates and food. We were really financially struggling. We had to go to food banks and borrow money from family.”

March Of The Mummies: why 10,000 parents are marching for their rights