A Mental Health Moment
By Bernadette Joy Graham, MA, LPCC, LLC
The Truth Contributor
Mental Health Awareness Month (May) began in the United States in 1949. Its purpose is to provide an essential opportunity to highlight mental health issues, reduce stigma, and promote emotional well-being due to stress, anxiety, and depression that affect millions of people universally. It also reminds us that mental health is just as vital as physical health.
Mental health influences how we think, how we feel, and how we behave. In addition, how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Yet, despite its importance, mental health often takes a back seat due to misunderstanding, cultural stigma or lack of access to care.
Mental health challenges, just as do physical challenges, affect us all in various ways. May 10 of this year is Mother’s Day. Regardless of being a mother or not, none of us come into this world without a mother. Those who are mothers may describe motherhood as a joyful, life-changing experience and, if not joyful, there is no denial in it being life-changing.
Unfortunately, for many minority mothers, motherhood brings an invisible burden of negative and unaddressed challenges of stress, anxiety and depression rooted in social inequities, lack of access to quality healthcare, systemic racism contributing to a mental health crisis that disproportionately affects Black, Latina, Indigenous, and Asian mothers in the U.S. and beyond.
Minority mothers carry the weight of multiple identities in emotional and psychological overload. In addition to typical postpartum stressors, many face issues of racial discrimination in healthcare settings, economic instability and insecurity, limited access to culturally competent mental healthcare, language barriers and stigmas in their own communities around seeking help.
After childbirth, these stressors often compound not only the mother’s health and well-being but the emotional health and development of the child. Postpartum depression (PPD) affects an estimated one in seven mothers overall with many studies showing significantly higher rates among Black and Latina mothers, with symptoms of chronic anxiety, trauma and burnout with caregiving due to limited support.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Black mothers are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related or childbirth causes than white mothers. Minority women have often shared they are less likely to receive mental health screenings during and after pregnancy and report feeling unheard by healthcare providers.
Take a mental health moment as Mother’s Day approaches and beyond about the challenges of minority mothers and how mental health care can improve the overall quality and outcomes for both mother and child. By breaking the silence, offering solutions and advocating for change whether you are a healthcare provider, employer, policymaker or friend the mental health of minority mothers is not just a women’s issue but encompasses community and public health and human rights. It is time to center much more effort to minority mother’s voices, needs and invest in the care they deserve bringing another life into this world.
Sources:
https://www.mhanational.org/mental-health-month
https://www.nami.org/Get-Involved/Awareness-Events/Mental-Health-Awareness-Month
https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health-awareness-month
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
Department of Public Health, College of Health and Human Services, Southern Connecticut State University, 493 Fitch Street, New Haven, CT 06515, USA
Bernadette Joy Graham, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Therapist and Certified Grief Recovery Specialist can be reached via Email: graham.bernadette@gmail.com
If you feel you may be in a mental health crisis, please call 988 or go to the nearest emergency room.