The most stressful time of the day for modern mothers is at 8.25am during the school run, a study has found.

By Nick Collins, The Telegraph: Getting the children out of bed, making sure they eat breakfast and checking they pack their bags leaves mothers exhausted before they have even left the house.

But it is at 8.25am, when many mothers are fighting their way to school through rush hour traffic, that stress levels reach their highest, research found.

The survey of 2,000 mothers also revealed that the school run leaves four out of ten working mothers stressed before they even reach their desks.

Forty-two per cent said they had snapped at their children on the way to school regardless of whether they were behaving badly and a similar number admitted having been involved in road rage incidents in the morning traffic.

Tracey Hyem of Uniroyal, which conducted the survey, said: "Getting everything and everyone ready and dropping the kids at school makes a very stressful start of the day for mums.

"One in five mums drive the kids to school when it's raining, when they would normally walk. This adds to the cars on the road, and with the distractions and stress generated, extra care is essential."

More than half of mothers drive to work after dropping their children off, and on average suffer three near-misses a year as they rush between school and the office.

Forty per cent said the school run was the most stressful part of the day, while 38 per cent said making sure their child had the right P.E. kit, letters, homework, dinner money and permission slips left them feeling overstressed.