We spend months preparing women for childbirth.

We teach them what contractions might feel like, what to pack in a hospital bag, how to feed and care for their baby.

But we do remarkably little to prepare a mother for what can happen to her after the baby arrives.

And then, if she begins struggling, we tell her to ask for help.

But what happens when the help she needs isn’t there?

I’m a mental health therapist who has spent 15 years working in this field. I’m also a mother who experienced postpartum mental illness myself.

And even with my education, training and experience, I was not prepared for what postpartum mental illness could actually feel like from the inside.

That experience changed the way I understand maternal mental health.

We place an enormous amount of responsibility on mothers to recognize that something is wrong. To distinguish symptoms of mental illness from the exhaustion and overwhelm we have normalized in early motherhood. To overcome fear, shame and stigma. To tell someone what they are experiencing. And then to navigate a healthcare system and find appropriate treatment, often while caring for a newborn.

But there is another barrier we don’t talk about enough:

A mother has to believe it is safe to tell us the truth.

Fear of judgment, being viewed as an unfit mother, or potential involvement of child protective services can prevent mothers from fully disclosing what they are experiencing.

Imagine asking a mother to tell us about the thoughts that frighten her most while she is terrified that speaking those thoughts aloud could cost her the very relationship she is trying desperately to protect.

If we want mothers to tell us the truth, we have to build systems of care where they can come forward, share what they are actually experiencing, and know that both their safety and their baby’s safety will be taken seriously.

That means investing in the full continuum of maternal mental healthcare.

It means healthcare providers who understand perinatal mental illness and can recognize when a mother is struggling.

It means meaningful screening that leads somewhere when a mother says she isn’t okay.

It means timely access to clinicians with specialized perinatal mental health training, community and outpatient treatment, and intensive psychiatric care when symptoms become severe.

And it means investing in specialized programs and models of care that, when clinically appropriate, allow mothers experiencing serious mental illness to receive treatment alongside their babies, rather than requiring separation simply to access the level of care they need.

Because telling mothers to “ask for help” is not enough.

We need a system prepared to reach back.

These resources require funding.

For too long, maternal mental health has been treated as though it is primarily an individual mother’s responsibility to recognize, disclose and navigate.

But when appropriate care is difficult to access, specialized services are unavailable, providers lack adequate training, or mothers fall through the gaps between screening and treatment, we are no longer talking only about an individual problem.

We are talking about a healthcare system that needs greater investment.

Increasing funding for postpartum mental healthcare can help expand specialized perinatal mental health services, strengthen provider education and training, improve access to community and outpatient treatment, and develop more intensive programs where mothers experiencing severe illness can receive specialized psychiatric care alongside their babies when clinically appropriate.

It can help create stronger pathways between identifying a mother who is struggling and actually getting her the care she needs.

And it can help us build more places where a mother in crisis does not have to choose between getting the psychiatric care she needs and remaining close to her baby when it is safe and clinically appropriate for them to be together.

Because awareness without access is not enough.

Screening without treatment is not enough.

And asking mothers to tell us the truth without creating systems where they feel safe enough to do so is not enough.

Mothers deserve more than being told to ask for help.

They deserve to understand what is happening to them.

They deserve to be able to speak without shame.

They deserve to be taken seriously when they do.

They deserve access to appropriate care.

And they deserve a healthcare system designed to protect both mother and baby.

Please sign this petition calling for increased government funding for postpartum mental healthcare across the United States, including greater investment in specialized perinatal mental health services and treatment programs that allow mothers and babies to remain together whenever clinically appropriate.

We say that maternal mental health matters.

It is time we fund our healthcare system like it does.