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Maternity Service
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  • Published: 17 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9780241696392
  • Imprint: Fig Tree
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 144
  • RRP: $37.00
Categories:

Maternity Service

A Love Letter to Mothers from the Front Line of Maternity Leave

Formats & editions
Paperback
16 June 2026
Hardback
17 June 2025
EBook
13 Mar 2025
Audiobook
13 Mar 2025
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A heartfelt, reassuring and bracingly honest book about what it actually feels like to be on maternity leave, from award-winning Radio 4 Today programme broadcaster, Emma Barnett.

The essential companion for every mother embarking on maternity leave

'In one important sense maternity leave is poorly named, as it involves no actual leave. You are constantly on, even when your offspring is having a nap. There is nothing restful about it. In another sense maternity leave is aptly named, because it’s a period of leave from all you know: taking leave of one’s mind, body, job, and relationships'

When Emma Barnett began her second maternity leave, she realized that, despite having been there before, as soon as her first leave finished the rose-tinted lenses had descended and she immediately forgot what the experience was actually like when you’re in it. This collective forgetting, which leads to well-meaning comments such as ‘enjoy every minute’ and ‘treasure this special time’, is doing a disservice to women, leaving them unprepared for the more complicated reality of what it means to be on maternity service.

In this warmly reassuring, refreshingly honest book, Emma sets out to capture this reality, in real time while on her latest tour of duty. She isn’t offering advice on sleep-training or weaning or helping your baby reach milestones. Instead, this book is a celebration and acknowledgement of the work of being on maternity leave, with its soaring highs and challenging lows, and its impact on how women feel about our purpose and ourselves.
  • Published: 17 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9780241696392
  • Imprint: Fig Tree
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 144
  • RRP: $37.00
Categories:

About the author

Emma Barnett

Emma Barnett is an award-winning broadcaster and journalist. She was named Interviewer of the Year for 2022 at the British Journalism awards and is a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today Programme, as well as hosting TV interviews and documentaries across the BBC. She has presented programmes that include Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 and Newsnight. She also presents Ready To Talk - a BBC podcast she created to have meaningful one-to-one conversations about the moments that reshaped people's lives. Think bold questions, unexpected truths and lot of tea.


Emma pens a newspaper column for the i, and was previously a columnist for the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph, where she was also the Women’s Editor. After the birth of her first child, she wrote Period: It’s about Bloody Time, her first book. Emma grew up in Manchester, and now lives in London with her husband and their two children.

EB

Also by Emma Barnett

The Examined Mind
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Praise for Maternity Service

Women need to be prepared for motherhood, in body and in soul, and I hope Emma’s book will inspire mothers to talk about their "maternity service"

Naomi Stadlen, author of What Mothers Do – especially when it looks like nothing

An absolute jewel of a book. Kind, funny, smart, soothing, and radical ... A true gift for mothers, and an act of service in itself. This book will change lives

Lucy Jones, author of Matrescence

When Emma turns her forensic gaze onto a subject, that subject should be very afraid. She is stepping out onto virgin soil here and busting it open in the most comprehensive of ways … Attitudes towards Maternity Leave should and will never be the same again. And the first thing that needs to change is its ridiculous name

Emma Freud

A tender, honest 'love bomb’ of a read ... I’m giving it to every new mother (and old) that I know

Abi Morgan, author of This is Not a Pity Memoir

Wise, compassionate, funny and honest, Maternity Service is a wonderfully sisterly guide to an often-misunderstood time. An essential companion for the overwhelming days of new motherhood.

Charlotte Runcie

Emma Barnett is the David Attenborough of the maternity leave world; her writing is as reassuring as her voice is on the radio. Reading this made me want to weep with relief for the woman I was in those early months - this book should go alongside the breast pads and maternity pants in every hospital bag

Dolly Jones

This book is absolutely excellent. I loved every word

Claudia Winkleman

Maternity leave is a no man's land. Often literally. Weirdly so little has been written about it - probably because new mothers are too knackered and dazed. Emma has managed to capture this very strange but magical time and make some sense of it for us all

Susannah Constantine

This lovely book will keep many a new mother company

Philippa Perry

This is the book every woman should read before they take maternity leave

Anya Hindmarch

Maternity Service is like a very honest, reassuring and lucid friend throwing their arm around you and telling it like it is, so you can enter this wilderness armed with self-knowledge, compassion and a sense of humour about the hard bits. The handbook women everywhere have been waiting for

Claire Cohen

‘Reassuring, funny and wise … A very welcome life raft’

Sophie Ellis Bextor

A caring, funny, real book that holds your hand when you are holding everyone else’s in perfect nap time chunks. I wish I’d had it when I was in the service. Next time I’ll know where to go

Jessica Brown Findlay

After the birth of her second child, BBC Radio 4 broadcaster Emma Barnett set out to candidly and compassionately chronicle the reality of maternity leave in real time, hoping to capture the rollercoaster ups and downs of this unique time in a parent’s life, and how it can impact a woman’s sense of identity and purpose

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