March is Autoimmune Awareness Month

By Mariah Z Leach on March 2, 2026 Explaining Chronic Illness

March is Autoimmune Awareness Month! While a person’s immune system ordinarily guards against viruses and bacteria, people with autoimmune diseases have immune systems that mistakenly attack healthy body tissue and cells. Examples of autoimmune diseases include: rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Crohn’s disease, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis (MS), and more. Many of the moms in our Mamas Facing Forward private Facebook group are living with autoimmune diseases.

Here are some facts about autoimmune disease from the Autoimmune Association:

Approximately 50 million Americans are living with autoimmune disease.
There are more than 100 known autoimmune diseases
80% of people living with autoimmune diseases are female.
25% of people living with autoimmune disease have multiple diagnoses, and certain diseases tend to cluster with others.

Learn more about autoimmunity here!

Mariah Z Leach

Mariah is a writer, patient advocate, and mom of three living with rheumatoid arthritis and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. After learning firsthand how challenging and lonely it can be to face pregnancy and parenthood with chronic illness, Mariah became passionate about supporting people with chronic illness who are or want to become parents. She launched her private Facebook support group, Mamas Facing Forward, in 2015. Today the group connects parents and parents-to-be with chronic illness from all over the world. In 2018, she added this website, dedicated to collecting and creating resources that focus on pregnancy and parenting with chronic illness.