Not true for everyone
September 9, 2026
Postpartum Psychosis or Depression is a real and present danger for some new mothers. Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children, aged 8 months to 5 years, with an exercise band, cut her wrist and neck, and jumped off the second-floor flat in a failed suicide bid. Her husband was out on an errand. She was arrested and faced prosecution by the District Attorney’s Office in the US. In court, Lindsay sat beside her defence lawyer in her wheelchair, paralysed from the waist down, awaiting the jury’s return to deliver its verdict for the judge to pass a judgment of guilty or acquittal.
The jury returned a hung jury – one juror among 12 held out against declaring Lindsay Clancy not guilty. The other eleven believed her. Recent pictures of the family shown by the defence lawyer to the jury established that Lindsay Clancy was happily married and adored her children. Her tragic act had to be accounted for as a mental disorder that did not receive due attention by the health system in the US. Lindsay was prescribed medication for her depression, but nothing beyond that – help she desperately needed – gathered from testimony of her friends in court.
The judge declared a mistrial. Now it is for the prosecution to decide whether to retry the case – knowing well which way the jury will rule – or arrive at an out-of-court settlement: not life imprisonment, which Lindsay would have had to undergo if she was convicted – to a lighter sentence being committed to a psychiatric institution to treat her mental disorder.
11-to-1 hung jury symbolised that postpartum depression was not an isolated case, but a real and present danger for new mothers.
I have a new mother at home. Our granddaughter will be 75 days old in a week. Watching my daughter deal with her pregnancy over 9 months, then the trauma of delivery, and now sneaking in sleep time when the baby is asleep or when taken care of by a family of six at home – the child’s uncles and aunties and grandparents- the saying, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, has never been truer as we behold this child – and as Grandparents reliving our child-rearing years with our daughter’s child, a joy to behold – and held.
Our grandmothers, who were born in the 19th century, produced children like a baker produces hot buns by the dozen. I understand the concept of contraceptives did not exist then, or more likely, children were a resource on the farm in a largely agricultural economy. And, of course, mortality rates were high compared to today, both for the mother and the child. My grandfather married a second time because his wife died soon after delivering the sixth child; the first died in his teens. My grandfather married his deceased wife’s niece to help take care of the five children. The new wife herself had four of her own.
Did my grandmothers have postpartum depression, or, for that matter, did my mother and her girl siblings have postpartum depression? I don’t know. I have not asked. I am sure they did. But I suspect it was a manageable situation because there was help at home – lots of help. They were a joint family, unlike today; especially with city-dwellers, it is often a nuclear family.
I recall my mother saying that she was not allowed to step out of the room for thirty days, and then for another sixty days she never left her home. Infection was a major cause of death for the child and the mother. Now, our grandchild will be receiving 18 vaccine jabs to immunise her from fatal complications. And mothers too get advanced medical care today, with death in childbirth seemingly rare.
My wife, who delivered and raised five children – me hanging around somewhere in the vicinity - confesses it was tough for her too, but depression, well, not quite; though pressure from well-meaning folks when the child is not nursing well or crying too much did gnaw on the nerves. My wife enjoyed raising her five children. Now she is raising her granddaughter, with little sleep at night when the baby wakes up, does a potty, and screams to be cleaned or fed. Then our daughter is awakened from her deep sleep to nurse the baby.
Part of my wife being sanguine about raising children could be the spacing of each of our children - 4 years for the first three and two years (and half) for the last three. The fourth child was a bit cranky; not sure if it was perceived attention deficit with a younger sibling just 2 ½ years younger. Does spacing help? Not sure. But it certainly takes the pressure off the mother. She can focus on one child at a time.
We hear from the Gospel writer Luke about how Mother Mary hurried to her cousin Elizabeth when the angel Gabriel told her: “Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” (Lk 1: 36-37)
Mother Mary’s heart went out to Elizabeth. The old couple, living alone for so many years, clearly needed help. She stayed for three months – helping them out. Then returned home to prepare for her own child, Jesus, to be delivered to the world. Word made flesh.
Our grandchild, under 75 days old, in time, a teenager, when her grandmother is in her 80s and asks for help; we imagine her saying, “Of course, Amama, you were there for me”. This critical support went lacking for Lindsay Clancy, it would appear, and for many with her condition.
- Mathew Anthony
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