Maternal Mental Health: Negative Impacts and Positive Solutions
Every May we celebrate Mother’s Day.
“Yay moms.” Flowers. Brunches. Social media tributes.
May is also Maternal Mental Health Awareness month, well it is no longer May yet here I am talking about this topic because it is a subject that deserves a lot of attention. Every day and every month.
Maternal mental health continues to decline and maternal mortality rates continue to climb in America.
Something is deeply broken in the way our society supports mothers and families…
A low-risk mother may attend 12 to 14 medical appointments while pregnant, yet after birth she is often offered a single six-week checkup to recover from one of the most profound physical, emotional, and psychological transitions of her life.
The first year after a baby is born is a period when parents are navigating sleep deprivation, physical recovery, feeding challenges, relationship changes, and significant mental health risks. Many maternal health advocates argue that postpartum care should be viewed not as a single visit, but as a continuum of care throughout the first year after birth. Some countries offer in home nurse visits over the first ten days after birth. Others, have cultural support where a mother or month in law comes to take care of the new mother while she is recovering and healing for the first forty days postpartum. In our country we are sent home alone or with a partner and if we’re lucky the people who come and visit bring food and offer to help with some chores. Most people are not that lucky.
Negative Impacts
Since 2020, there has been a noticeable cultural shift. Many mothers realized they wanted to spend more time at home with their children. For a moment, we could. Then we all had to go back to paid work. And now, our economy often makes that impossible, to stay home full time. If one person can support the entire family then it’s possible but not so many people are that resourced. Childcare costs are equivalent to mortgages. Families are trying to survive rising costs while navigating sleep deprivation, identity shifts, and the emotional labor of raising children.
In response to returning to out of home work, many women turned to online businesses and MLMs, especially in the wellness industry. Some found community and flexibility there. Others found pressure, comparison, and unrealistic expectations, often from people without professional credentials. That is another conversation entirely, but it reflects something bigger happening culturally.
We have created a divide where women are told they must fit into one of two boxes:
The stay-at-home mother or “trad wife”
The career-driven “girl boss” slaying the business world
But the reality is that most mothers live somewhere in the middle.
And all this comparison has done is wreck our collective health.
Motherhood is work.
All mothers are working, whether they are paid or not.
I have never liked the term “working mother” because it implies that mothers at home are somehow not working. Raising children, managing a household, feeding people, regulating emotions, healing after birth, carrying the invisible labor of family life, that is all labor, that is all work.
How a mother is created and treated during the first one to two years after birth matters deeply.
And support cannot fall solely on the partner. The reality is that many partners are also exhausted, sleep deprived, and carrying immense pressure to provide. And many women are doing this work without a partner.
Positive Solutions
We need systems of support.
We need:
Affordable childcare
Paid parental leave
Community care
More family-friendly public spaces
In-home postpartum support
Places where children are welcomed without families needing to spend money just to exist there
Our society does not honor the birth of a mother. The massive identity shift known as Matresence.
It expects her to “bounce back” and return to work almost immediately.
Puppies legally cannot be separated from their mothers for eight weeks, yet some women return to work a week or two after giving birth because financially they have no other choice.
That reality is brutal.
No one is winning in this system.
My devotion to mothers began long before I became one myself, but after living within this system firsthand, I can honestly say: I do not like it here. I love my children yet being a mother in today’s society is simply exhausting- “to work like you don’t have children and parent like you don’t work” demeans the real work we do as mothers. I chose a profession that allows a flexible schedule and I still find the balance to be quite difficult.
What if the first five years of a childs life, a parent could focus on their family and pause a career or significantly reduce their hours. I personally love my work and would miss not doing something outside of the home. This is not a reality for many and would set us “back” in our professional careers and reduce our retirement savings. What if choosing motherhood was just as admirable as choosing a high powered career. I believe many women are returning back to that idea. Yet our society doesn’t often allow us to fall completely into motherhood. Especially in the first few years. The idea of “doing it all” is not as enticing now that we’ve seen what it truly requires. Complete exhaustion and self sacrifice.
One More Solution:
I know bodywork, massage, and wellness services are not accessible to everyone. But I also know they offer something many mothers are desperately lacking, a place to receive in a world where they are constantly giving. More and more insurance companies are allowing members to get reimbursed for massage and doula work which feels like a small win.
In Somatic Maternal Healing, Helena Vissing explores the concept of maternal bodyfulness and the importance of addressing the embodied experience of motherhood. She argues that pregnancy, birth, and early parenting are not solely psychological events but profound biopsychosocial transitions that affect the nervous system, identity, and lived experience of the body.
Within this framework, somatic touch serves as a therapeutic intervention that supports nervous system regulation, interoceptive awareness, and the restoration of a mother's connection to her body. ‘Attuned, consent-based touch may help reduce physiological stress responses, increase feelings of safety, and foster a greater capacity for self-regulation. By engaging the body directly, somatic approaches can access experiences and patterns that may not be fully available through cognitive processing alone.’
Vissing further suggests that supportive touch can contribute to the development of maternal bodyfulness, the ability to remain present with bodily sensations, emotions, and changing identity during the transition to motherhood. This embodied awareness may enhance resilience, support recovery from difficult reproductive experiences, and strengthen a mother's capacity to respond to both her own needs and the needs of her child.
From a maternal health perspective, somatic touch recognizes that healing occurs not only through education and psychological support but also through experiences that help the body regain a sense of safety, connection, and integration. As such, it offers a valuable complement to traditional models of perinatal care that have historically focused primarily on physical recovery and infant outcomes.
Final thoughts
The truth is, there are countless “experts” online telling parents exactly what to do, how to parent, what they need etc. Yet what families truly need is not more noise or perfectionism.
We need support.
We need community.
We need healing touch.
We need the rebuilding of the village that so many families have lost.
And a village is not one exhausted mother trying to do everything alone.
A village is many families, many people, showing up for one another.
Learning to depend on others can feel uncomfortable in a culture that raised us to value extreme independence and individualism. But I truly believe that reconnecting to community is one of the only ways forward.
How mothers are created matters.
How parents are supported matters.
How families are held during early parenthood matters.
Not just for mothers.
For all of us.
For our children.
For the future we are building together.
With Love,
Renée
Mother, Massage Therapist, Doula
