Publish date: 20 September 2024
West London NHS Trust is observing Black Maternal Mental Health Week, which runs from 23 to 29 September. The week aims to raise awareness of the mental health challenges faced by Black mothers by promoting education, advocacy, and support for Black women through their pregnancy and postpartum.
The theme for this year is Transforming and Advancing Change.
Women from black minority backgrounds are nearly four times more likely to die in pregnancy than white women, and studies show they face numerous health inequalities in maternal healthcare, due to factors including pre-existing health conditions, socio-economic factors including deprivation, and factors such as bias, microaggressions and racism.
Dr Jamila Carey, Perinatal Mental Health Consultant at our Trust said:
"There's an assumption that motherhood and mental ill health don't really align, they're not connected. We sort of elevate mothers to be sacrificial, blissful beings, who kind of float above it all, regardless of what's happening in their lives, regardless of pressures, they're perfect and all-seeing, all-knowing, all-loving, all the time.
"To have any cracks in that facade is considered to be really shameful and causes a lot of guilt.
"People know about the stigma regarding mental health, but there's an additional stigma when you have mental health issues when you're pregnant or have children, which I think we're only starting to acknowledge and misogyny comes into that a little bit as well.”
Jamila was speaking during an interview on the award-winning Unapologetically Black Podcast hosted by Dope Black Women, in May.
During the interview, she also spoke about the fears associated with becoming a parent, advocating for oneself during pregnancy, cultural disconnect between generations, and preventing postpartum depression.
You can listen to the full interview on Spotify.
The Motherhood Group is hosting a number of webinars and events to mark the awareness week. You can find out more by visiting their website.