Rachell is representing Georgia in Strolling Thunder 2025, our annual advocacy event calling on policymakers to prioritize babies and families.
The Forgotten Fourth Trimester: Why Moms and Babies Deserve Better
By Rachell M. Dumas, MSN, RN
Rachell, a Strolling Thunder 2025 parent, shares her journey through pregnancy loss, postpartum PTSD and early parenting to highlight why families urgently need paid leave, maternal mental health care and support for infant and early childhood mental health.
My Miracle Baby
I am a registered nurse, maternal health advocate and the founder of A Light After Nine. I am also a mother.
Before I became a mother, I survived nine heartbreaking pregnancy losses. After each loss, I was handed a stack of discharge papers, but never a therapist’s number. I never received any follow-up or a plan for how to navigate the kind of grief that felt like it might swallow me whole.
When I gave birth to my son Nazaire, I thought I had made it. He was my miracle baby, born after years of trauma, surgeries and setbacks. I thought bringing him into the world safely would bring relief, maybe even joy. But the postpartum period brought something else entirely. Anxiety. Grief. Panic. Sleepless nights filled with fear that something would happen to him, simply because so much had already happened to me.
And while I was struggling to function, my two-year-old was also left unsupported. There was no system in place to recognize that children born to traumatized mothers can carry that trauma too.
At the time, I didn’t know I had post-traumatic stress disorder. All I knew was that I couldn’t connect with the baby I had fought so hard to have. I cared for him like a nurse, not a mother. I watched over him carefully, but at a distance. I didn’t say his name for almost a month. Not because I didn’t love him, but because I was afraid to believe he was really mine.
At the time, I didn’t know I had post-traumatic stress disorder. All I knew was that I couldn’t connect with the baby I had fought so hard to have.
From Pain to Purpose
I am grateful for the counselors who tried to support me. They understood grief and loss, but very few understood this kind of trauma or what it might mean for my baby.
Eventually, I received a PTSD diagnosis. That helped me make sense of my experience, but it didn’t change the fact that our mental health system left me to figure it out alone.
Nazaire didn’t just inherit my love. He inherited the weight of everything I had been through. Stress, anxiety, and grief do not magically disappear once you give birth. They show up in the way we bond with our babies, how we function day to day, and how our children develop.
Yet in this country, we treat maternal mental health as a side issue. We don’t ensure therapy is available. We don’t offer long enough paid leave for people to rest and recover. We don’t equip health care providers to treat both the parent and the baby as a unit. And we especially fail Black mothers like me, who face higher risks of complications, dismissal, and trauma at every step of the journey.
If I had been given space to grieve, to heal, and to bond, things might have been different. But like so many other mothers, I was expected to bounce back, return to normal, and figure it all out on my own.
We need more than well wishes. We need comprehensive paid leave, accessible maternal mental health care, and investment in infant and early childhood mental health. We need a system that does not just get the baby here safely, but helps both parent and child thrive afterward.
Because surviving is not enough. Not for us. Not for our babies.
Determined to turn her pain into purpose, Rachell created A Light After Nine, a nonprofit to help families navigate infertility, pregnancy loss and maternal trauma with the emotional, financial, and mental health resources they need.
Yes, mental health includes babies.
