“Finding out I was pregnant was one of the happiest moments of my life, and one of the loneliest,” said Louise Kirby-Jones.“All I wanted was my mum beside me. Motherhood reopened every part of my grief.”Just over a quarter (27%) of mums in the UK are motherless – yet the impact of entering motherhood without the emotional or practical support of their own mums is rarely spoken about.Kirby-Jones used her experience of postpartum loneliness and grief to co-found The Motherless Mothers (TMM), an online community of women without mums – whether that’s because they have died or are estranged, sick or live far away – who support one another. “Every year, millions of women become mothers without the support of their own,” said Kirby-Jones. “Yet our healthcare system doesn’t even ask about it.“I know first-hand how that silence makes us feel, invisible, misunderstood, and left to cope alone. If we want to improve maternal mental health, we have to start by recognising grief as part of the story.”A new study, The Hidden Crisis Of Motherless Mot