American Heart Association News: 5 Ways to Support, Relieve and Remember Moms on Mother’s Day

American Heart Association News recently interviewed Susan Cheng, MD, MPH, director of the Institute for Research on Healthy Aging in the Department of Cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, about the stress factors that can affect mothers and how family members can help reduce the burden.

"The pandemic completely changed the fabric of our lives, and it made it clear that meeting children’s needs and your own simultaneously is just tough," Cheng told AHA News.

Cheng said that stress comes from sources beyond a mother’s control, and it's not something a mother can deal with alone. "It impacts every part of how we live, affecting everything from how people eat to how family relationships develop," Cheng told AHA News.

Mothers are very "action-oriented" and always doing something, Cheng told AHA News. To support them better, Cheng suggested making a game out of looking for ways each family member can help lighten a mother's load.

Cheng recommended helping mothers carve out personal quiet time with no distractions. She also suggested arriving at appointments early and using the time in the car to meditate, reflect or pray. "Alone time cannot be emphasized enough. I think that should actually be celebrated, protected, prioritized," Cheng told AHA News.

Cheng added that because of the pandemic, many children are in the care of people who are not their parents, and being sensitive to that is important. More than 203,000 children have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19. "If you see a grown-up with a child, you might not want to assume it’s a mom or dad," Cheng told AHA News.

Click here to read the complete article from AHA News.