“All of a sudden, everything I’ve worked to this point crashed around me, all of a sudden I lost everything,” says Grace Carter. “My idea of losing business made me feel like losing a baby.
“I had a really, really hard work.”
After years of attempting to have a second child, the 33-year-old was overjoyed when he gave birth to his daughter in November 2023.
But she says Independencealthough she felt suicide as a result of the financial burden of having a baby, she still has a huge debt after trying to lift her business and her young family.
Ms. Carter, from Colchester, has since joined the request for maternity pay to coincide with the national living wage, demanding that “the mother’s financial contributions are properly recognized and compensated.”
She said she received a legal maternity salary (SMP). This is the equivalent of 37.5 hours of full-time workers making around £4.99 per hour after the first six weeks of maternity leave. This is 12.21% per hour, approximately 41% of the National Living Wage (NLW) in 2025, and is set to ensure basic standard of living.
Ms Carter – Ms, founder of Metamorphose Group, a collection of purpose-driven brands aimed at changing the lives of women and girls she has built for over eight years, is the combined effect of her losing her job, and as head of her company, The discrimination she faced led to a roughly half of her business’ annual sales cut from an average of £600,000 that year to £350,000, forcing her to borrow £140,000.
The two mothers later established a final child-rearing poverty campaign; petition They ask the government to increase statutory childbirth and father’s salary in line with the NLW.
Carter said: “At a minimum, if the government requires that they should not work for less than NLW, then it is neither sustainable nor ethical, so it cannot be suggested that a child is living half of that.”
The government said new mothers are entitled to 52 weeks of leave and 39 weeks of SMP, which will increase from £184.03 per week to £187.18 from April.
A survey of more than 1,000 people implemented this month by Obstetrics Measures found that five pregnant mothers and new mothers report concerns about money affecting their health, with almost a quarter reporting not eating food to make sure they can feed their families.
Judith Dennis, policy director for the charity, said: “Unfortunately, Grace Carter is not alone in her experience of being financially shocked by her maternity salary… We support Grace’s calling of parity between the living and childbirth wages of the people who went to all parties before the general election.”
“We’ve got a lot of money to pay for parental leave,” said Katie Guild, co-founder of Nugget Savings, who focuses on paying for parental leave. “We need to remember that having a baby is extremely productive for society, raising future generations of taxpayers, customers and workers.
“The maternal penalty accounts for 80% of the gender pay gap, which starts with birth wages, a time when a mother’s financial contributions are properly recognized and compensated.
Carter said he suffered from a traumatic miscarriage in January 2022, during which he bleed and had to be resuscitated, leaving him with depression and complicated PTSD. However, she said she must return to work within three days of leaving the hospital due to the lack of financial support available as a female business owner.
Following the miscarriage, she said that pregnancy with her second daughter was highly stressful and that a blood transfusion was required after a cesarean section. When she was recovering at the hospital, she said her phone had started notifying her about the issue within her company after the issue.
“I had no choice. If I didn’t work, the business was going down,” Carter said. “I’ve been working so hard over the years and I’ve made too much sacrifice for it to happen, and I was really conscious of my staff and suppliers relying on me for what they provided to their mortgage and family.”
But she said she was nervous about her job. Because she was legally not allowed to work “contacts” for more than 10 days, as she qualifies for the small birth wage she was supposed to receive. It once again highlighted the unique challenges that she said were women entrepreneurs faced by children and were self-employed and responsible for their business.
She said she ended up doing as much as she needed to prevent her company from going down, but no more, but she still suffered very much as a result. This was followed that her mental health really began to suffer.
Ms Carter, who recently gave evidence to the Women and Equality Committee on the issue, said, “We work in a world built for men. No one is talking about the effects of having babies and bringing babies into business. A year later, we have yet to reach the government agenda.
A government spokesman said, “The law is clear. No one should face discrimination because he is pregnant or is on parental leave. Legal maternity salaries and maternity allowances are supplemented annually, and is just one of the support available to pregnant women and new mothers.
“In revising the economic foundations, we are supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by reinforcing profits, supporting low-income families, and changing universal credit deductions to make everyone better.”
If you are experiencing feelings of pain or are struggling to deal with it, you can confidently speak to Samaritans on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org or Samaritan A website to find details about your nearest branch.
