On August 28, 2024, the United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared parental stress a public health crisis. This was a notable shift, as the impact of parenting on parents and their unmet needs has largely been absent from discussions of reproductive health in the United States. The recognition of parental stress, across the spectrum of parenting, rather than narrowly on the preconception and perinatal period, brings a long-overlooked segment of the reproductive lifespan into public health discussions: parenthood overall.
