Overview
- Prosecutors and defense in the Plymouth Superior Court trial are asking a jury to decide whether Lindsay Clancy was experiencing postpartum psychosis when her three children died in January 2023.
- Reporting shows Clancy repeatedly sought medical help, saw multiple clinicians, and received more than a dozen prescriptions before the deaths, raising questions about how her care was managed.
- Clinicians and researchers say postpartum psychosis is biologically distinct but not listed as a standalone diagnosis in major manuals, which they say limits training, research and legal recognition.
- Medical experts warn that postpartum psychosis is a psychiatric emergency that often involves lack of insight and usually requires immediate hospitalization and mood stabilizers or antipsychotics rather than antidepressants alone.
- The U.S. lacks perinatal psychiatric capacity, with fewer than roughly 40 intensive mother-baby programs nationwide and many frontline clinicians lacking specialized training, prompting calls to expand programs, improve screening, and change care pathways so mothers get faster, more appropriate treatment.