Pregnancy is often one of the most supported periods in a woman's life. There are appointments to attend, milestones to track, books to read and classes to book. Conversations naturally focus on labour, feeding choices, nursery preparation and what to expect on the day a baby arrives. Much of this support is valuable, necessary and reassuring.

Yet as maternity care continues to evolve, there is an important question worth asking: are we preparing women for birth, or are we preparing them for the reality of what follows?

In almost every area of professional life, feedback loops are a given.

You make a decision. You watch what happens. You adjust. Even in roles with unusually long horizons such as a multi-year product build, a market entry, a company turnaround… there is eventually a moment of reckoning. A point where you find out if you got it right. The cycle of do, assess, adjust, repeat is so deeply embedded in how many of us work that we stop noticing it, it just becomes the rhythm of competence.

Motherhood doesn't work like that.