Healing Legacies: Black Maternal Health, Mental Wellness, and the Power of Collective Care

Black Maternal Health Week offers us the opportunity to reflect, advocate, and act with intention. This year’s theme, “Healing Legacies: Strengthening Black Maternal Health Through Collective Action and Advocacy,” feels especially close to my heart, not just as a Black woman and a mental health therapist walking alongside mothers every day through my work with Healthier Moms and Babies, but also in my most sacred role: Mama. This year’s theme reminds us that while the traumas of the past are real, so is our power to transform them. Our collective action, whether in therapy rooms, birthing centers, hospitals, living rooms, or legislative halls, is what strengthens the future of Black maternal health.

When we talk about “healing legacies,” we are not just acknowledging the generational trauma and systemic inequities that have impacted Black birthing people, we are also claiming our right to joy, safety, and wholeness in the perinatal experience. We are remembering the power of our grandmothers' prayers, our aunties’ wisdom, and our own intuition, and using that power to demand better for ourselves and for the generations to come.

In my work, I sit with mothers who are navigating the many layers of pregnancy, postpartum, and parenting, all while holding the weight of being Black in systems that weren’t built to protect them. I hear their stories of strength, but also their stories of isolation, fear, and not being heard. Mental health is maternal health, and we must treat it as such.

At Healthier Moms and Babies, we are actively working to bridge those gaps by providing not just therapy, but culturally informed, trauma-aware care that honors the full humanity of Black birthing people. That means making space for tears and triumphs. It means validating the anxiety that comes from medical mistreatment. It means offering tools for healing that don’t erase identity but embrace it. We’re working to ensure that Black mothers are not only surviving but thriving. We listen. We hold space. We empower…and we keep showing up, because healing is both personal and communal.

Even as we do this work one-on-one, we know true change requires collective action. Advocacy isn’t optional, it’s essential. That looks like fighting for policy change AND cultivating safe spaces in our own communities where healing can begin. It looks like calling out disparities in maternal care AND creating culturally grounded wellness plans where Black women feel seen and held.

This week, and every week, I honor the strength and softness of Black mothers. I honor our resilience and our right to rest. I commit to continuing the work, not just in the therapy room, but in every space where healing and justice must meet. I honor the fullness of Black motherhood, its joy, its grief, its sacred strength. I honor mothers who came before us, and the children we’re rearing to live freer than we did. I honor myself, and I honor you.

Together, we are healing legacies. To my fellow birth workers, therapists, doulas, mamas, aunties, sisters, and advocates: the legacy we’re building is powerful. Let’s keep healing. Together.

In solidarity and sisterhood,

Stephanie Burton, LMHC

Mental Health Therapist

Healthier Moms and Babies

Proud Mama to a Really Cool Toddler