On Mother’s Day, the Trump administration unveiled their Moms.gov with the blazing banner that promised, “Resources, Information, and Help for New and Expecting Mothers.”

I was, as most people were I assume, skeptical to say the least. Afterall, this is the same administration that gut abortion rights, is on a book banning warpath, and spent most of Mother’s Day weekend letting their pronatalist female mouth pieces encourage American women to procreate. [1] “Biological destiny”? [2] Gross.

Still, a small sliver of not-quite-hope flickered in me. Maybe…just maybe…this would be a tiny drop helpful for mothers in the United States? Maybe it could be a one-stop of resources for all those social safety nets that we’re still patching back together post-COVID: An easy to understand and apply for WIC benefits page? An investigation to address the dangerous and continued closures of maternity wards in hospitals, particularly in rural areas? An expansion of the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline for parents experiencing postpartum depression and/or anxiety?

But then..oh…no.

As soon as I began to explore the site, that impossibly tiny flame of hope was quickly snuffed out. Then doused with water. Then covered with dirt. Then doused with water again to ensure that flame could never, ever, return.

It appears the more accurate purpose of the Moms.gov site is stated just under that above mission statement: “Addressing the needs of mothers and fathers who face difficult or unexpected pregnancies and ensuring the wellbeing of mothers and the health of American families” – a proclamation emphasized by the accompanying image of a disembodied (white) woman, standing in a (wheat?) field, wearing a bohemian yellow dress and cradling her very large, very pregnant belly. Directing users to –

Holy anti-abortion pregnancy centers, Batman!

Anti-abortion pregnancy centers – often referred to by anti-abortion activists as Pregnancy Resource Centers or Crisis Pregnancy Centers – oppose abortion, shame abortion care, and promote alternatives to abortion, often despite what the pregnant person desires. They rely on deceptive and shady tactics to push people to continue unwanted pregnancies. Front and center of Moms.gov are two link outs to “Find Pregnancy Centers Near You” (which takes you to Option Line’s locator tool, a database populated by predatory anti-abortion pregnancy centers) [3] and “Find FQHCs Near You” (which takes you to a locator tool for Federally Qualified Health Centers, community-based clinics that receive federal funding that have been proposed by anti-abortion lawmakers as a replacement for abortion care/healthcare clinics like Planned Parenthood.) [4]

But wait, there’s more!

As if pushing vulnerable, scared, or confused people staring down an unexpected pregnancy towards predatory clinics isn’t enough, the Moms.gov site dissolves, as you scroll, into a huckster shill of Trump-branded programming with links to “Trump Accounts” (which experts warn will overwhelmingly benefit wealthier families over the low-income families they are claiming to help) [5] and “TrumpRX” (touted to lower prescription drug costs, but consists of sweetheart deals with Big Pharma companies [6] that have not lowered drug prices. [7])

After this spat of advertisements, the designers of the site seem to run out of steam, devolving into a series of links to previously existing outside pages, to address a variety of ‘parental concerns’ from Pregnancy Radiation Exposures (no, not normal possible exposure as you might expect, like an X-ray, but to a CDC page about what to do if you are pregnant and in a radiation emergency) to Sleep Safety (a definite concern for sure, but my kingdom to see the faces of MAHA moms being directed to the CDC safe sleep guidelines as the best way to prevent SIDS, and not being told to avoid vaccines, something they’ve tried to pin SIDS deaths on in the past. [8])

But don’t despair – there is definitely some Make America Healthy Again-adjacent BS here! Kicking us off is ‘Preconception Health’. Preconception health can be important, especially if someone is actively trying to conceive, but this idea is a far cry from the Office on Women’s Health’s idea that “Every woman should be thinking about her health whether or not she is planning a pregnancy” because, according to them, “about half of all pregnancies are not planned.” [9] The kind of reasoning ignores the vast array of options to prevent or deal with an unexpected pregnancy beside continuing the pregnancy to term – from birth control and IUDs to Plan B and abortion – while also perpetuating the dangerous idea that a woman’s life should always be centered around possible pregnancies, her own desires, wants, and needs be damned. Combined, as always, with a variety of pseudo-science optimalizations that anti-abortion zealots have been pushing on social media (Fertility Awareness-Based Methods and Restorative Reproductive Medicine) which mostly amount to an anti-IVF junk science gambit.

Eventually, Moms.gov becomes a paint-by-number carousel of resources. There are dubious and incorrect facts. Do we need another study that disproves the claim that breastfeeding saves money? Well, I have one for you, that show breastfeed actually costs as much as $11,000 versus the average cost of formula feeding between $760 and $2,280 [10] despite what Moms.gov wants you to believe. To say nothing of the uneven caregiving split, return to work struggles, and less sleep that directly impacts breastfeeding mothers for negligible benefits. [11]

Then, there are link outs to facts that completely fly in the face of what they’re telling Americans – as if they didn’t even both to read what they’re directing people to. As a mom who was greatly helped by using antidepressants to deal with postpartum depression and anxiety, I was particularly interested to see the Mental Health Resources, knowing HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is on a warpath against Americans “overuse” of psychiatric medications and his sweeping attempts to “rein in” the prescriptions of widely used antidepressants [12] So imagine my *surprise* reading the link out to Lisette’s PPD Story, about how she not only used antidepressants postpartum, but that they helped her “come out of the dark hole I had been living in and became the best version of myself ever!” and that “…the medication was essential and lifesaving for me.” Not just Lisette, Jasmine also shares her story of not wanting to take antidepressants at first but working with a psychiatrist to develop a safe medication plan that allowed her to feel better. [13] Both stories are a far cry to Kennedy’s fearmongering ideas of antidepressants and their “serious side effects” (like his claim – without any evidence – that these medications cause mass shootings.) [14]

So…happy mother’s day from the Trump administration, I guess? At a time when the motherhood penalty is still in full force [15], childcare costs as much as a mortgage [16], and mothers of young children are leaving the workforce, erasing gains made after the pandemic, due to curtailing of remote work options [17], elected leaders have decided to give moms a website that is one step above AI slop, filled with anti-abortion propaganda, billboards for Trump schemes (I see you, Trump steaks! And Trump University. And Trump Shuttle.) and disingenuous, at best, while dangerous, at worst, confusing and finger-wagging information around pregnancy and birth.

Next year, I’ll ask for a nice bathrobe instead.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/05/08/melania-trump-mothers-are-america-strength/
[2] https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2053276343479984210?lang=en
[3] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/05/hhs-mothers-day-pro-life-website/
[4] https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2025/federally-qualified-health-centers-could-not-readily-replace-planned-parenthood
[5] https://time.com/7338829/problem-with-trump-accounts/
[6] https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/at-hearing-warren-exposes-trumprx-scam-blasts-trump-administration-for-putting-big-pharma-over-americans-health
[7] https://democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/media/press-releases/reality-check-new-report-confirms-trumprx-not-lowering-prescription-drug
[8] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/how-anti-vaxxers-target-grieving-moms-turn-them-crusaders-n1057566
[9] https://womenshealth.gov/pregnancy/you-get-pregnant/preconception-health
[10] https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/a-year-of-breastfeeding-costs-families-as-much-as-dollar11000-study-finds/
[11] https://fedisbest.org/2019/03/an-evaluation-of-real-benefits-and-risks-of-exclusive-breastfeeding/
[12] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/science/rfk-antidepressants-ssris-hhs-maha.html
[13] https://womenshealth.gov/talkingPPD/stories
[14] https://www.npr.org/2026/05/07/nx-s1-5814083/rfk-jr-hhs-ssri-antidepressant-psychiatry-therapy-mental-health
[15] https://www.aauw.org/issues/economic-security/motherhood/
[16] https://19thnews.org/2025/06/child-care-costs-rising-home-costs/
[17] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-so-many-mothers-with-young-children-are-leaving-the-workforce