During pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood, women undergo a far-reaching physiological and psychological metamorphosis. There is no other time in a human’s life course that entails such dramatic change other than adolescence. And yet this life-altering transition has been sorely neglected by science, medicine and philosophy. Drawing on new research across various fields – neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics, ecology and cultural history – Lucy Jones shows how the changes in the maternal mind, brain and body are far more profound, wild and enduring than we have been led to believe.