25/09/2026
Black Maternal Mental Health Week UK takes place annually throughout September and aims to raise awareness of the unique mental health challenges experienced by Black women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postnatal period. The campaign also seeks to address the systemic inequalities that continue to affect access to support, quality of care and health outcomes.
Whilst discussions around maternity safety often focus on physical health outcomes, maternal mental health is equally critical. Poor mental health during pregnancy and after birth can have significant consequences for mothers, babies and families, making early intervention, compassionate care, and accessible support services essential.
Understanding the inequalities
Despite growing awareness of perinatal mental health, evidence suggests that Black women continue to face barriers when accessing support and are more likely to report negative experiences with healthcare services. Research from Five X More highlights concern around communication, feeling unheard by healthcare professionals, discrimination, and challenges in accessing appropriate care.
These experiences can impact both physical and psychological wellbeing, contributing to increased anxiety, stress, and trauma during what should be a positive and supported period of life.
The latest findings from Five X More's research into Black maternal mental health found that many women who experienced mental health difficulties during pregnancy and after birth reported barriers to accessing support and varied experiences of being asked about their emotional wellbeing by healthcare professionals.
The importance of culturally competent care
Improving outcomes requires more than simply expanding access to services. Maternity providers must ensure that care is culturally competent, responsive, and centred on the individual needs of women and families.
This includes:
Creating environments where women feel listened to and believed.
Recognising how cultural experiences may influence discussions around mental health.
Addressing unconscious bias and discrimination.
Ensuring timely referrals to specialist perinatal mental health services.
Working collaboratively with communities to co-design services and support pathways.
For NHS trusts and maternity providers, these objectives align closely with wider patient safety, quality improvement, and health inequalities agendas. The recent Amos report addressed the need to tackle inequalities in maternity and neonatal outcomes and the national rollout of the Perinatal Equity and Anti-discrimination Programme, which will be available to all trusts by the end of 2026 is very welcome. The programme has been developed to support maternity and neonatal teams to tackle racism and discrimination, improve the experiences and outcomes of ethnic minority groups and those from deprived communities, and support staff to work in environments free from discrimination and racism. The report also highlighted the need for Boards to regularly review and act on trends identified by their inequalities data dashboards.
Governance, risk, and learning
Mental health inequalities within maternity services also present important governance considerations. Effective leadership, robust incident review processes, and meaningful engagement with service users are essential to understanding where inequalities exist and how services can improve. As was highlighted in the 2025 Independent Review of Maternity Neonatal Services at Swansea Bay University Health Board, work that our team supported, women need to be placed both at the centre of care and the design of services.
As maternity services continue to face significant scrutiny in relation to safety and quality, organisations should ensure that mental health is considered as a core part of maternity care, rather than a separate issue. Learning from patient experiences, complaints, incidents, and claims can provide valuable insight into opportunities for improvement.
Supporting safer maternity services
At Bevan Brittan, we work with NHS trusts and healthcare providers to support safer, more equitable maternity services through specialist legal, governance and regulatory advice.
Our Maternity Services Legal Support team advises on the full range of issues affecting maternity providers, including inquests, investigations, claims, governance, patient safety, and quality improvement initiatives.
Looking ahead
Black Maternal Mental Health Week UK provides an important opportunity to reflect on the experiences of Black women and the steps needed to reduce inequalities across maternity services. By listening to women, strengthening services, and embedding equality into patient safety and governance frameworks, healthcare organisations can help ensure that every mother receives safe, compassionate, and effective care throughout her maternity journey. As James Titcombe’s recent article highlighted the focus going forward needs to be on a maternity system that works for all placing patients at the centre of care and the design of services.
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