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Maternal Mental Health: Reducing the Stigma Through AI
Maternal depression affects approximately 1 in 5 women in the United States. For many, their struggles go undetected and untreated. It's critical that we acknowledge both the prevalence of this condition and the innovative solutions emerging to address it. The lack of diagnosis of postpartum...
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The Silent Barrier: How Fear of Judgment from Healthcare Providers Keeps People from Seeking Help
What if the person meant to help you was the one you feared most? Imagine sitting in an exam room, fidgeting with your cell phone, scrolling through apps, and trying to distract yourself from the anxiety building inside. You are aware of the antiseptic smell lingering in the air, but it’s drowned...
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Supporting Maternal Mental Health in the Workplace: Policies, Practices, and Culture Change
As more women navigate pregnancy and early motherhood while continuing their careers, organizations must recognize that mental health support during the perinatal period is critical to employee wellness, engagement, and retention. Untreated perinatal mental health conditions, including depression,...
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Collaborating for Change: Building a Stronger System of Maternal Mental Health Support in New York
Effectively addressing maternal mental health requires a comprehensive public health solution that targets risk and protective factors. These include social determinants of health, clinical care, community support, culturally responsive interventions, and policy changes. This is why the New York...
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Voices of Hope and Healing: Parental Mental Health Peer Support Program for New York Families
Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, including postpartum depression (PMADs), are the most frequent complication related to childbearing and a leading cause of maternal mortality in New York State.1 PMADs affect up to 20% of birthing persons and new mothers. Also, up to 13% of fathers may...
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Beyond the Baby Blues: Understanding the Impact of Codependency in Maternal Mental Health
Have you ever found yourself lying awake at night wondering if you're doing enough as a mother, even after giving everything you had that day? Do you constantly second-guess your parenting decisions, compare yourself to other moms, or feel like you're falling short, no matter how hard you...
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The Role of Partners in Supporting Mothers with Postpartum Depression
Postpartum depression (PPD) is classified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) as a major depressive disorder with peripartum onset. It is characterized by persistent sadness, anxiety, fatigue, and difficulties in emotional bonding with the newborn....
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America’s Hidden Maternal Mental Health Crisis
There is a quiet but growing crisis unfolding in America. It is the steady erosion of maternal mental health. New national data underscore what so many families and clinicians already know: U.S. mothers are struggling, and the supports meant to sustain them are lagging behind. A recently...
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The Generational Transmission of Untreated or Unresolved Relational Trauma
She leaned in close to me, whispering as if we were girlfriends rather than therapist and client: “I’m trying to get pregnant because then I’ll have someone who will love me forever and never leave me.” How do I, as a compassionate therapist, gently explain to this 13-year-old girl that...
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The Silent Struggles of Fertility: Understanding the Emotional Toll
When a woman embarks on the journey of fertility care, she enters a world filled with hope, uncertainty, and an emotional burden not always perceptible to others. The medical procedures and clinical visits are only part of the experience—behind closed doors, many face silent struggles that take a...
