The Trump Administration launched a new website for moms. It's just as terrible as you'd expect it to be.
Moms.gov has a clear message for moms and very little real support.
Hi! If you’re new here, I’m Naomi. I’ve been teaching movement for 21 years and writing about all things movement, fitness, wellness, and women’s health for nearly as long.
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In honor of Mother’s Day, the White House unveiled a new website geared toward moms, called Moms.gov. If you take it at face value, this website is intended to provide “resources, information, and help for new and expecting mothers.” But mostly it’s a glossy marketing campaign for the Project 2025 agenda of women birthing more babies and staying home with them.
The website itself is fairly general, in that it provides a menu of options for women to peruse for support – most of the ones near the top of the page are for Trump administration initiatives. “Nutrition facts for mothers” features a link to the new wacky upside-down food pyramid, followed by the “Jumpstart your child’s future with Trump accounts” (which only benefits babies born during the 2nd Trump presidency). Immediately below that is information about TrumpRx, suggesting that a government website is the best place to seek drugs that might help you get pregnant – featured options include GLP-1s, as well as drugs that might help with “ovulatory dysfunction” and “hormonal imbalance.”
I spent a few hours digging around the site, including many of the links, and this is what I found:
Crisis Pregnancy Centers are offered as a resource for pregnant women, while masking what they truly are and do.
The first section you get to when you scroll down the page is titled, “Access Pregnancy Support Services and Health Centers – Navigating pregnancy can feel overwhelming, but you don’t have to do it alone.”
This might lead you to believe that these are actual medical facilities staffed by trained medical professionals. They are not. If you click on the button offering to “find pregnancy centers near you” the site you are directed to is Optionline.org, which is run by Heartbeat International.
Heartbeat International is a powerful, well-funded anti-choice organization which serves as a network to guide pregnant women to pregnancy crisis centers rather than toward actual medical care. Crisis pregnancy centers are rarely staffed by medical professionals and give biased information about pregnancy, while often giving misleading information about abortion and encouraging adoption as an alternative.
Additionally, as Jessica Valenti has reported, Heartbeat international, functions as a data collection tool, gathering information about pregnant women who use their online resources. Further, as reported by Valenti, Heartbeat International is dishonest about their data collection and have shared private medical information with 3rd party sources (employees at crisis pregnancy centers, as an example).
So not only is Moms.gov providing options that are clearly biased, they are also linking to an organization which deliberately collects data about women’s bodies, as well as their medical and health care choices.
While there is a link to federally funded clinics, it is secondary to the crisis pregnancy centers. And you can bet none of them provide the full range of necessary women’s health care, including abortion.
Fertility is prominently featured, yet IVF is missing in action.
There are multiple mentions of “preconception health” and fertility awareness, as well as the above-mentioned “hormonal imbalances” – the last of which is a bit of a dog whistle, referring to tracking your cycle rather than using more reliable forms of birth control. Tracking hormones or “fertility tracking” is also another way that women can be surveilled, especially if they are using certain apps.
While fertility is emphasized, birth control is underrepresented – which makes sense, since the current administration is hyping the idea that we are currently in a fertility crisis. Teenagers are having fewer babies!!!! The horror!!!!
While information about birth control is available, it’s difficult to find. You have to dig through multiple webpages before you find any real information about birth control options. And you certainly can’t get it via TrumpRx. I tried.
Additionally, while infertility is presented as a problem, the solutions are more rooted in MAHA-style interventions, at least at first. Healthier eating, lifestyle adjustments, and supplements are offered as solutions before any mention of medical options.
IUI (intrauterine insemination) is suggested, as well as ART (assisted reproductive technology), but IVF (in vitro fertilization) is not mentioned explicitly. ART is an umbrella term for all assisted fertility treatments, but the fact that IVF is not listed is likely due to the fact that republicans voted against the Right to IVF Act in 2024.
Tylenol is out. Pain is in.
Toward the bottom of the main page, there’s a link regarding medicine and pregnancy. You’d think this page would have information about common medications and whether they are safe during pregnancy, but the only one mentioned by name is acetaminophen (aka Tylenol). The warning reads, “Although a direct causal relationship between acetaminophen and autism or ADHD has not been established, pregnant women should consider avoiding acetaminophen use during pregnancy as a precaution.”
There’s no mention of what women should do instead if they’re in pain. No reminder to avoid aspirin during pregnancy as this medication can actually cause miscarriage, as well as developmental delays in babies (among other major health issues).
And again, no other medications are directly mentioned.
Apparently, fed is not best.
On the main page, breastfeeding is presented as the superior option for feeding a baby. Formula isn’t even mentioned on the main page. You have to click through to find any information about breastfeeding challenges and how formula feeding can support families for a variety of reasons. Formula is presented as a worst case scenario option when breastfeeding fails (most of the reasons listed are a result of the failure of moms body, not something like a tongue tie or other oral issues).
Additionally, breastfeeding is strongly encouraged as the exclusive food source during the first 6 months of life. I guess this makes sense if you’re not going to offer paid maternity leave. Reading between the lines, you can easily see that the belief here is that women should not be working outside of the home because their work is now in the home: birthing, feeding, and raising children.
There is information about “easing the transition” back to work and figuring out how to continue to exclusively feed your child breastmilk, but most of it is absurd.
There’s this unhelpful statement, “The law requires some employers to provide reasonable break time for employees to express milk for their nursing child for 1 year after their child’s birth. These include a functional space and time for women to express milk each time they need to.”
Which employers? How much time? And define functional space.
The truth is, employers do not always accommodate women returning to work after giving birth and not just when it comes to breastfeeding. As a result, many women stop breastfeeding when they return to work because it’s stressful, full of conflict, or simply impossible.
Honestly, the whole section on ‘Breastfeeding and Going Back to Work’ is comical. Suggestions include, “discuss different types of schedules with your boss, such as starting back part-time at first or taking split shifts,” and a “hands-free breast pump may even allow you to work while pumping,” and also, “Some women come to work early or stay late to make up the time needed to pump.”
All of these are offensively stupid. Women are often penalized when they ask for accommodations if they return to a job they took leave from to give birth. And the suggestion to arrive early or stay late – in what universe is that realistic for a new mom?
The reality is that exclusively breastfeeding is a massive privilege and nearly impossible for women who do not have flexibility in their jobs or a workplace that supports women, particularly when we’re not also providing paid maternity leave for any length of time as a national standard.
An actual solution would be providing paid maternity leave for at least 6 months. A country that genuinely cares about maternal health and supporting families would provide this, bare minimum.
There is literally no vaccine guidance.
There aren’t any recommendations regarding newborn, infant, or toddler health beyond nutrition. Other than “breastfeed for 6 months”, there is nothing suggesting what infants or their parents might need in those first 24-72 hours. There’s nothing about what to expect in the first few weeks or months or how to handle health challenges that might arise.
And there is no schedule listed of vaccines that are necessary as protective health for the most vulnerable among us – newborns, infants, and toddlers.
Nothing about the Vitamin K shot or the Hep B vaccine, both of which are typically administered immediately after a baby is born (and both of which have saved countless lives). Both of these, of course, have been targeted by the new ACIP board, all appointed by RFK Jr, longtime anti-vax advocate.
There’s also no information whatsoever about flu shots, Covid vaccines, or standard childhood vaccines as protective measures both for babies and children, as well as for the general public.
The closest Moms.gov gets to vaccine guidance is a PDF of “Parenthood Guided by Conscience,” which is really just a document offering parents explanations for what protections are afforded them if they refuse to vaccinate their children. This might as well be listed under the heading, “Informed Consent” since that is effectively what this document is promoting.
You’re on your own, postpartum.
Also missing is any sort of meaningful guidance for postpartum care. Notably, there is a page for mental health, largely focusing on postpartum depression. 4 different women share their experiences with postpartum depression via video and they are important stories to hear.
However, there is literally no other postpartum guidance.
Nothing about even the most basic things to expect physically postpartum, like uterine cramping (when the uterus shrinks back down after giving birth) or how it’s more intense for moms who have already given birth once.
Nothing about physical recovery time and how long a woman might bleed or signs that the bleeding is abnormal.
Nothing about the differences between a vaginal delivery and a c-section and how women who have a c-section have a very different recovery path.
Nothing about common postpartum physical ailments like hemorrhoids, vaginal dryness, breast engorgement, and constipation (or even an actual fear of pooping because bearing down reminds you of labor and you’re worried you’ll push out more than poop).
Nothing about more intense but unfortunately common physical experiences like pelvic organ prolapse, incontinence, or diastasis recti (abdominal separation).
Nothing about painful sex postpartum, which impacts many women.
And of course, there is no mention of the bone deep exhaustion that most (all) women feel postpartum. Even Mrs. Tradwife herself, Hannah Neeleman, sometimes needs a week to recover from mothering her 9 children (according to her husband in that infamous Times of London article in 2024).
These are not outliers in the postpartum experience; they are common. And yet somehow all of it is missing from this page, as if the postpartum experience is expected to be a dreamy montage of nursing a new baby, cuddling a new baby, napping with a new baby, and staring with adoration at a new baby. Rather than the physical realities of giving birth and caring for a newborn.
Or perhaps it’s that the authors of Project 2025 don’t really care about the postpartum experience because their priority is more babies, not maternal or postpartum health.
*****
There’s lots of other weird stuff, like fearmongering around workplace safety during pregnancy, mostly suggesting that workplaces can be dangerous for pregnant women. I’m sure this is true if you are a welder or working with toxic chemicals, but for the average woman?
There’s no real mention of childcare postpartum, because as we know it doesn’t exist as an affordable option or on a large scale for women postpartum.
All of this suggests that the purpose of this webpage is more focused on encouraging women to get pregnant rather than truly supporting them after they give birth. This is unsurprising from an administration that simply wants more babies born, not the burden of ensuring they live healthy lives as they grow up.
Other than the Trump accounts, there is nothing on this webpage about how this government cares for families — and those barely count. What does come across is the MAHA ideology that individuals — in this case, women specifically — are responsible for their health (and their babies health), not the government.
As I’ve written before, when the government places all of the power in the hands of individuals by suggesting that health is a choice, it absolves them of any sort of responsibility if and when things go sideways.
Additionally, this webpage is not encouraging women to seek more support, but in fact, less, as it continues to reinforce the idea of the nuclear family vs collective care. This keeps women isolated and far less supported than when we encourage an intergenerational model, community care structures, or even significant government support in the form of universal (affordable) childcare.
When I think about what women really need before, during, and after pregnancy, I found none of it on this website.
Instead I found a lot of propaganda encouraging women to embrace motherhood as their calling, while dipping out of the workforce. Its core belief is that women don’t need to participate in the world beyond the 4 walls of their home.
This is wildly unhelpful and genuinely unrealistic, given that 47% of the workforce is female. And simply that women deserve to have agency when it comes to how to live our lives, as well as a government that supports them if they choose to have children — whether it includes having a career or not.
The truth is that this administration doesn’t actually care about families. They care about power. When you require women to be caregivers, exclusively, you strip them of their power. You reduce their impact to a very small circle, because of course, this doesn’t end with women simply becoming stay-at-home moms. The end goal is women not voting or participating in politics. Just ask Pete Hegseth and the pastor he continues to invite to lead prayers at the Department of Defense.
If this administration cared about women’s health, maternal health, or building families, it wouldn’t look like what we see on Moms.gov.
*****
To close, I’ll offer a few things that would have made my 3 pregnancy and postpartum experiences significantly better:
1. Full insurance coverage of my 3 home births.
I paid out of pocket fully for the first 2 and partially for the 3rd. Yes, giving birth at home was a choice but giving birth should not be something that families are required to pay for.
With insurance, hospital birth is usually partially covered (vaginal being less expensive than a c-section), but most families still pay something.
2. Guaranteed basic income for 6 months postpartum. For nearly all of my adult life and professional career, I have worked for myself, so paid leave isn’t even a reality for me. In fact, I was fired postpartum (from one of the studios where I taught for 8 years) after the birth of my first child. My income has never recovered. It’s actually only decreased nearly every year since.
But even setting that experience aside, knowing that I could have the space to spend time with my baby and not worry about how quickly I could get back to work would have been life changing.
3. Guaranteed affordable childcare through pre-k. Even a stipend for childcare monthly would have been a vast improvement. By the time I gave birth to my 3rd child, we couldn’t afford childcare of any kind. As it was, my 2nd and 3rd stayed home with me until kindergarten – the 2nd mostly due to covid and the 3rd due to a lack of available childcare centers where we lived at the time.
This is a short list. I imagine other women could add to it (please do in the comments).
But it’s mostly to say that for a website that promises to provide “resources, information, and help for new and expecting mothers” it is significantly lacking in each of those areas.
*****
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I can’t process this properly 🫠