Three acclaimed thinkers and writers discuss the far-reaching effects of maternity, with author and journalist Candice Brathwaite. Women undergo a huge physiological, psychological and social metamorphosis during pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood. There is no time other than adolescence that entails such dramatic change, yet the huge diversity in its effects go largely unrepresented and undiscussed.

Dr Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural scientist, University of Cambridge Fellow and author of (M)otherhood: On the Choices of Being a Woman. Lucy Jones is author of Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood, a radical new examination of how motherhood changes the mind and body. Clover Stroud is a journalist and author of My Wild and Sleepless Nights: A Mother’s Story and The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story.