Background <p>The birth of an infant with an abnormality or a postpartum disease and subsequent admission to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is very stressful for mothers. The adoption of effective coping strategies can enable the mother to tolerate the critical conditions of the newborn’s illness. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a short-term (four 2-hour sessions) mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program on improving coping strategies among mothers of infants admitted to the NICU.</p> Methods <p>This quasi-experimental study was conducted using a pre-test-post-test design on 50 mothers of preterm infants hospitalized in the NICU of Afzalipur Hospital, Kerman, Iran. The mothers recruited through convenience sampling, then randomly assigned to experimental (MBCT) and control groups (25 mothers each). The MBCT program involved four 2-hour sessions, focusing on mindfulness exercises, stretching, meditation, and cognitive restructuring, for the participants in the intervention group. The participants in the control group received routine NICU care. The Ways of Coping Checklist (WCCL) and the demographic information form were completed before and after the intervention by the participants in both groups. Data were collected before and one month after the intervention, analysed using paired and independent t-tests via SPSS-25.</p> Results <p>The intervention group showed a significant increase in problem-focused coping strategies and a decrease in emotion-focused coping strategies post-intervention (<i>P</i> &lt; 0.001). There were no significant changes in the control group. The between-group comparison confirmed the effectiveness of MBCT in enhancing adaptive coping.</p> Conclusions <p>A brief MBCT program can effectively improve maternal coping strategies and mental health in mothers experiencing neonatal stress. These findings suggest that integrating short-term mindfulness interventions into NICU care protocols may support maternal resilience and foster healthier mother-infant interactions. This study highlights the potential of scalable, low-cost psychological interventions for enhancing parental well-being in high-stress neonatal care settings.</p> Trial registration <p>This quasi-experimental study was not registered in a clinical trial registry because it did not meet the criteria for trial registration.</p>