It's poignant that 2021’s International Women’s Day coincides with the opening of schools across England. For many mothers, who for weeks have been attempting the impossible task of both working while also home-schooling, the sound of silence will be an unusual one.

Throughout the pandemic the charity Pregnant Then Screwed has gained a significant volume of media coverage, highlighting the ways in which the pandemic has disproportionately impacted mothers and pregnant women. At the heart of their success has been a commitment to ensuring the lived reality, the raw, unfiltered experiences of mothers in the pandemic is heard.

It’s a commitment which comes to the fore in their latest campaign. The Pregnant Then Screwed SOS helpline effortlessly captures the unfair load that women have shouldered throughout the pandemic. The charity specifically set up the Scream or Shout (SOS) telephone line for women to scream and shout their frustrations at how let down they have been by the lack of government support during this pandemic.

The messages have been edited into a recording that has today been sent to MP’s to highlight the inequality that mothers have been living with and the detrimental consequences of the burden of trying to hold down their jobs and look after their children.

A Pregnant Then Screwed survey of 15,000 women in October 2020, found that a third of new mums said that their mental health was poor. A study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research which looked at the mental health of mothers after the first lockdown found that 43% of new mums met the criteria for clinically relevant depression and 61% met the criteria for anxiety.

Joeli Brearley, Founder and CEO of Pregnant Then Screwed explains: “The reality is that mothers have been pushed to their absolute limits in this pandemic. They are at their wits end. They are scared about their children's mental health, scared for their own mental health whilst simultaneously clutching onto their job with their fingernails.”

She continues: “One woman told us in tears that her husband has had to literally pick her up off the floor during this pandemic because she cannot cope anymore. Another told us she had said to her five-year-old that she was tired of being a mummy. These women aren’t OK, mothers are not OK right now.”

The project is designed to cement in history the realities that mothers faced during this pandemic.

Brearley goes on to explain: “What mothers are dealing with is taking place behind closed doors. We wanted to make the invisible, visible; to show politicians the impact their gender-blind policy making was having on women. This cannot happen again; we cannot put mothers through this ever again.”

It’s a compelling reminder of the power of real voices to affect change and encourage listeners to view the world through a lens other than their own.