Courtesy Missing Pieces Support Group/Facebook
Mother’s Day can bring up different emotions for women facing maternal mental health challenges.
Mother’s Day can bring up a variety of emotions for women who are navigating maternal mental health challenges and the often silent stigma surrounding pregnancy loss.
Rebecca Tapick is a loss support program manager with the Houston nonprofit Missing Pieces. The organization specializes in offering families who’ve experienced pregnancy and child loss with free services such as support groups, care packages and virtual workshops.
“It’s impossible to talk about motherhood and Mother’s Day especially without recognizing that one in four pregnancies ends in a pregnancy loss,” Tapick said. “This is a really common experience that’s rarely talked about and the impacts go unseen and are often invisible.”
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A 2024 report from UTHealth Houston’s School of Public Health cited overlapping maternal and mental health crises in the U.S. and Texas that impact a family’s health and economic outcomes. The report found that in 2019, the total societal cost of untreated maternal mental health conditions in Texas was over $2 billion during the first five years post-delivery, or $44,000 per mother-child pair. Nearly half of those costs were incurred during the first year and were associated with obstetric complications, preterm birth, suboptimal breastfeeding and sudden infant death syndrome, according to the report.
Untreated maternal mental health conditions caused longer post-delivery hospital stays and increased risks of suicide among mothers, according to the report, which showed that children faced increasing rates of preterm births before 37 weeks gestation as well as developmental disorders. At least 50% of new fathers also experienced depression, according to the report.
Tapick says more than 60% of mothers experience post-traumatic stress disorder years after a loss.
“Unlike any other medical condition,” she said, “like a chronic condition such as a diabetes diagnosis or congestive heart failure, where you have a whole team of people caring for you, giving you advice and guidance and follow-up care, women are really left to navigate their own health after a loss on their own.”
Tapick’s message for mothers feeling down this holiday weekend: You’re not alone.
“So many of us have had this experience and we see you and we feel your pain,” she said.
A shortage of perinatal psychiatrists and mental health professional are also some of the underlying challenges affecting mothers throughout the state, according to the report, which found that all but eight of Texas’ 254 counties have been designated as mental health professional shortage areas.
Dr. Sunita Osborn is a clinical psychologist based in Harris County. She said scary or intrusive thoughts are normal parts of parenthood, although many caregivers opt to remain silent out of what she calls fear of questioning one’s parenting skills.
“I think one of the most unspoken pieces about the maternal experience is the prevalence of perinatal and postpartum anxiety that can occur,” Osborn said, “and so there’s a whole spectrum of anxiety and stress that someone who is going through parenthood can experience from actually having a diagnosable anxiety disorder, which actually has a higher prevalence than postpartum and perinatal depression, but it’s not spoken about enough.”
Osborn encourages moms to share their feelings with a trusted person in their life.
“I think sometimes if we, particularly as parents and particularly as women, sometimes we not only feel like we have the burden of the responsibility of, ‘Here’s my problem, I also have to solve it,’ ” Osborn said. “Bring someone else the problem and maybe let them solve it with you, too. You don’t have to do it all alone. We’re not meant to do it alone.”
Editor’s note: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org. Helplines outside the U.S. can be found at www.iasp.info/suicidalthoughts.