Jamie Belsito told the Swampscott Tides that she’s already working with members of Congress in both the House and Senate on supporting maternal mental health.

“I’ve been working directly with Congress on all of these issues – whether it’s mental health and substance use health access,” Belsito said. “We even helped write the blueprint for maternal health in the Biden White House.”

Belisto is running to represent the 6th District in Congress, as the  seat is up for grabs after Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) announced he would challenge Sen. Edward Markey in the Democratic primary ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. There are six Democrats  – Bethany Andres-Beck, John Beccia, Jamie Belsito, Dan Koh, Mariah Lancaster and Tram Nguyen – along with Republican Micah Jones.

“I’m really lucky to have taken the past decade to continue my relationships with those folks whom I’ve always worked with and then the newer members (of legislation),” Belsito said. “We need to be a unified front…People are choosing not to do anything and that’s not who I am.”

Belsito is a former state representative for the 4th Essex District and currently serves as town moderator in Topsfield. She unsuccessfully ran against Moulton in 2020.

A Reading native who now lives in Topsfield, she is the founder of the Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance, where she worked on federal initiatives to support mothers and families. 

“The reality of our country is that our overall maternal health system is terrible,” Belsito said. “I had a miscarriage at three months in my first pregnancy, and I miscarried right before New Years Eve, so it was a reduced staff at the hospital. The support I got was so bad I couldn’t believe it.”

Belsito said she was sent home with mifepristone and misoprostol “to miscarry at home, which I don’t suggest to anybody.”

“That experience and then the follow up with my insurance company to explain to them why I needed this medication for contraction in my uterus and to why I needed to go to the hospital because I hemorrhaged a couple of weeks after – the whole situation was a disaster, and all I could think of to myself was ‘what the hell kind of health care system is this, and why am I being put on trial? I just suffered a major loss,’” Belsito said. “It was excruciatingly painful.”

When Belsito had her first daughter, she was continuously told about how another miscarriage is a possibility and that her age – 35 at the time – made her a “geriatric uterus” case.

“It was completely ridiculous,” Belsito said. “I spent the entire time thinking that I was going to have another mispregnancy, that I was not going to have a healthy baby, that I was putting myself at risk because of my age, that I already had a miscarriage, that my body was a failure. All of these different things, and there was no support around that.”

When she had her daughter, “she was perfect, but I was convinced that I had given birth to like Gonzo from the Muppet Show. I had detached myself from this pregnancy.”  Belsito realized that if she couldn’t find help for herself, as someone “born in the area, had a house, married to a guy, private insurance, wanted pregnancy, what did that mean to everyone else?”

“I learned that suicide is the leading cause of maternal death and nobody was talking about it. Secondly, Black and Brown women had been talking about this for years and nobody listened to them because why – they’re Black and Brown,” Belsito said. “God gave me this very loud voice to advocate, and I’m going to use it.”

She has since been able to get over $125 million in funding while partnering with the Black Maternal Health Caucus, the Maternal Health Caucus, the Caucus on Black Women and Girls, as well as the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. 

“I did this very loudly and very proudly as a state rep. when I tried to prevent the closure of the North Shore Birth Center, when I wrote the legislation that my girlfriends that preceded me in the State House after I was redistricted took that are now written into law by the governor on racial equity in the workforce pipeline for maternal health, community based mental health programs,” Belsito said.

Belsito noted that her nonprofit founded the 1-833-TLC-MAMA line, which provides trained counselors who can offer a range of support including brief interventions, referrals and other mental health needs to expecting and new mothers. The hotline was authorized and funded through Into the Light for Maternal Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Act of 2022.

“Families have used that across the United States to get help,” Belsito said. “It makes me so happy because even if it’s one person – if one person’s having a hard time and they think they’re alone at say 3 o’clock in the morning and they call, within 10 seconds somebody answers the phone, or you can text and somebody will get right back to you.”

Belsito’s advocacy has been cited by lawmakers like Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12) that would authorize research on the impacts of traumatic birth experiences and post-traumatic stress disorder on mothers, infants and their families. She also is a part of the push for the Women Expansion for Learning and Labor Safety (WELLS) Act that Rep. Robin Kelly (IL-02) introduced in March to prevent similar traumatic situations as a woman named Mercedes Wells had to experience after being forced to give birth in a parking lot just minutes after being discharged from a hospital.

“You really use the power of the lived experience to convey to legislators who were put into power by the people who elected them that they need to actually do their job,” Belsito said.

Belsito also noted that because of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, “this has been a completely bipartisan issue.” She has worked with Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) as well as Democrats like Rep. Lauren Underwood (IL-14) and Rep. Diana DeGette (CO-01) on funding based programs.

She also said she has more recently worked with the larger consortium of mental health groups; veterans groups and psychedelic medical work for them; as well as pre-kindergarten to fifth grade “folks who provide the Title V program,” in response to President Donald Trump’s administration “because we know they’re cutting, cutting, cutting.”

“I’ve had people say ‘all you do is maternal health,’ which is not true. I was on the education committee. I’ve done a ton of work on veterans, and I come from a military family,” Belsito said. “I’ve done a ton of work on coastal resiliency and the beaches, all the stuff that goes on here, but I’ve yet to meet one person who was not born from a mother. There’s a direct correlation between the health of a mother and their child, whether it’s physical or mental, and then impacts on the child if the mom or families are not well will manifest by cognitive delay, social and emotional instability, stunted participation in bonding. There’s a lot of throughlines that affect the health and wellness of our communities…Everything starts and ends with us as women.”

From October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026, Belsito’s team has received $225,925.88 in contributions and $25,000 in loans, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). 

Belsito was endorsed by the Massachusetts Peace Action, former Gloucester Mayor Greg Verga and State Auditor Diana DiZoglio. She also recently announced endorsements from Palestinian House of New England, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Ryan Lloyd, the chair of the YDMA Veterans Caucus.

Belsito has spoken at four Democratic candidate debates at this point, including one in Swampscott, when she responded to the Swampscott Tides’ question about local implementation of federal regulations. Belsito discussed how she is the town moderator in Topsfield and “we have a lot of work that we have to do around PFAS in our water supply.”

“I was thinking back to programs that we saw being released during COVID, during the local public health crisis, where everyone needed money and the government actually stepped up to the front funding public health,” Belsito said. “The bipartisan infrastructure law was great, and the president scrapped all that money. We need to advocate to put those monies back in.”

Outside politics, Belsito is the mother of two daughters. She said she sees “the future through their eyes,” pointing to issues including artificial intelligence regulation, housing affordability and protecting the beaches they enjoy.

Belsito’s name will be on the Democratic primary ballot on September 1.