How to Manage Your Mental Health as a Mother

Dr. Awaad begins with a confession: she never planned to work in mental health, and growing up she carried the same stigma toward it as the people around her. That stigma, she says, is not unique to Muslims; almost everyone resists the feeling that something is “wrong” with them. But Islam itself pushes us to care for every part of ourselves, and the scholars of Islam never neglected mental health. Much of the stigma in our communities, she argues, is cultural, or comes from what the field now calls spiritual bypassing: explaining every struggle only in terms of faith, as if weak iman were the whole story.

Her clearest example is postpartum (or peripartum) depression, which affects roughly one in five women who have been pregnant. Too often a new mother who starts crying and struggling is told: Allah just gave you a healthy baby, other women can’t have children, where is your iman, why aren’t you praying? The shame makes many women isolate and blame themselves. Yet the science shows that most of the time this depression is biological: the same hormones that sustain a pregnancy shift rapidly at delivery, and for some women the mood shifts with them. Lack of sleep and lack of support can add to it. It is not her fault.

She points out that the Prophet ﷺ integrated faith, medicine, and practical care. Dr. Awaad points to narrations about Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) giving talbina to people experiencing sadness or low mood, presenting this as an example of faith and practical care working together. He did not only say “tell them to pray.” There are beautiful duas for sadness and anxiety, and he sought refuge from grief every morning and evening, but he also taught people to take something that would help. “For every illness there is a cure,” and the Muslim civilization went on to excel in medicine because “wisdom is the lost property of the believer.” So when someone says “I’ll never take medication” or “Allah must be angry with me,” she gently answers: we don’t know Allah’s wisdom in a trial, but we do know our responsibility is to take care of ourselves.

At the core of maternal mental health is a simple image: a car that keeps driving without refueling will eventually run on empty. Women are nurturers by nature, caring for children, spouses, siblings, parents, and grandparents, giving constantly and taking very little. Her research at Stanford found that about 47% of American Muslim women report significant stress, yet around half also report resistance to seeking care.

Mothers, she stresses, hold real power: children learn far more from what their mothers do than from what they say, including how she treats her own mental health. The barriers she names are stigma, spiritual bypassing, and lack of access to quality care, which she works on through Maristan, the organization she co-founded. Dr. Awaad also points to her research on historic Muslim hospitals, describing Muslim women’s role in founding and funding some of these institutions and Islam’s long tradition of caring for mental health.

Dr. Awaad reflects on the story of Prophet Yunus as an image of profound isolation and despair, drawn from his time in the belly of the whale, where he called out, “There is no god but You, glory be to You, I was among the wrongdoers”: turning to Allah, praising Him, taking responsibility for his part, and asking to be brought out of the darkness. Faith, she says, gives light and guidance, and it also gives practical steps.

Her four steps: fill your cup, because you cannot give what you do not have, and self-care is not selfish; find circles of like-minded women, locally or online, who will not judge or shame you, and step back from those who do; teach by example, letting your children see you take a pause to reset (she uses a small i’tikaf-style corner at home), so they learn that pausing is healthy; and seek out support, because Allah tells us to “ask the people of knowledge if you do not know.” Just as you’d call a plumber for a leak, you see a mental health professional when things go too deep for friends and family. The Sunnah, she closes, is to make dua, pray, and take whatever help you need.