Boston-area trial draws attention to post-partum psychosis

A mom is on trial for killing her children. Her defense says she had post-partum psychosis. Psychiatrists hope the case brings attention to the need for better diagnosis and treatment for the illness.

AILSA CHANG, HOST: Postpartum mental health is at the forefront of a trial going on in Massachusetts. Lindsay Clancy has pleaded not guilty to murdering her three children in 2023, and her defense hinges on the dangerous condition known as postpartum psychosis. Medical experts and women who have experienced this disorder say that this trial shows the need for more understanding and education. From member station WBUR, Deborah Becker reports. DEBORAH BECKER, BYLINE: In Clancy's trial this week, her healthcare providers testified about the medications she was prescribed and her deteriorating mental state. Women who've struggled with postpartum psychosis say it's been difficult to hear. Meghan Cliffel was a new mom of two when her symptoms began. MEGHAN CLIFFEL: It's wild how quickly it happened, and also how, in my case, how logically I was acting but in a deluded reality. BECKER: Cliffel was riding the subway home from her job in New York City in 2015 when her thoughts started to unravel. CLIFFEL: I went to sort of from feeling a little off all day to suddenly believing people were watching me. BECKER: She came to believe that a group was plotting to hurt her and her two daughters, who were 2 years and 8 months old. CLIFFEL: So my brain is essentially taking all of these little details and knitting them together into this new alternate sense of terrifying truth wherein the entire city is out to get me and my girls. BECKER: It got worse when she got home. She thought the refrigerator was spewing poisonous gas and people on TV were threatening her. Throughout, she thought she needed to protect her kids. CLIFFEL: My husband's got our two baby girls in our bedroom, and I punched him in the face trying to get to them. BECKER: At the same time, a sense of paranoia overcame her, and she tried to get to the roof of her apartment building. CLIFFEL: In my mind, I was thinking if I showed I'd be willing to jump from the roof, that would - just showing I'd be willing would prove my loyalty and sort of save us. BECKER: Her husband called 911. CLIFFEL: I was handcuffed on the floor of our Lower East Side apartment. My kids were artfully distracted by watching Elmo in our bedroom. BECKER: During her 12 days in a psychiatric hospital, a doctor convinced her to take medications to help her, as she describes it, reattach to reality. Eventually, she got a diagnosis. CLIFFEL: It took about two months, and only when I was in the seat of a reproductive psychiatrist, for somebody to say, you had postpartum psychosis. And that moment of somebody naming it was so helpful to me. BECKER: She got better taking the mood stabilizer lithium, which is shown to be highly effective. Medical experts say, although postpartum psychosis is temporary and treatable, it can be dangerous and misdiagnosed. SUSAN HATTERS-FRIEDMAN: This is the scariest mental illness that I know of. BECKER: Dr. Susan Hatters-Friedman is a reproductive and forensic psychiatrist. She says one of the big problems is that postpartum psychosis is not listed as a distinct diagnosis in what's known as the DSM. That's the handbook used to identify mental health conditions. So patients often have a hard time getting proper care. HATTERS-FRIEDMAN: These things are happening to you, and you've got this dependent little person with you. And it's not listed in the DSM, and doctors might not recognize what's going on. BECKER: Postpartum psychosis is estimated to occur in 1 to 2 of every 1,000 births, making it more common than sudden infant death syndrome. But parents and their doctors are far less likely to be informed about it. Dr Veerle Bergink is with Mount Sinai Health System in New York. VEERLE BERGINK: We know that we don't train our doctors in it, that it's massively missed. BECKER: In Clancy's case, prosecutors say she deliberately planned to kill her kids. It was not sudden psychosis, as the defense argues. Bergink has treated hundreds of women with postpartum psychosis but has not treated Clancy and is not involved in the trial. She says Clancy's symptoms are clear. BERGINK: For me, it's a very classical, typical story of a woman with postpartum psychosis not being diagnosed, not being treated. BECKER: Mom Meghan Cliffel is now a writer and mental health advocate. She and many maternal health experts hope that the national attention from this trial will improve postpartum screening and education. CLIFFEL: You care about this now when it's at the center of this, you know, dramatic and tragic trial, but you don't care about this enough to change how we support women and families in this country. BECKER: Four years after Cliffel's ordeal with postpartum psychosis, she went on to have a third child with the proper care and medication. Her children are now 13, 11 and 6 years old. For NPR News, I'm Deborah Becker in Boston. (SOUNDBITE OF TAY IWAR SONG, "REFLECTION STATION") Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

AILSA CHANG, HOST: Postpartum mental health is at the forefront of a trial going on in Massachusetts. Lindsay Clancy has pleaded not guilty to murdering her three children in 2023, and her defense hinges on the dangerous condition known as postpartum psychosis. Medical experts and women who have experienced this disorder say that this trial shows the need for more understanding and education. From member station WBUR, Deborah Becker reports. DEBORAH BECKER, BYLINE: In Clancy's trial this week, her healthcare providers testified about the medications she was prescribed and her deteriorating mental state. Women who've struggled with postpartum psychosis say it's been difficult to hear. Meghan Cliffel was a new mom of two when her symptoms began. MEGHAN CLIFFEL: It's wild how quickly it happened, and also how, in my case, how logically I was acting but in a deluded reality. BECKER: Cliffel was riding the subway home from her job in New York City in 2015 when her thoughts started to unravel. CLIFFEL: I went to sort of from feeling a little off all day to suddenly believing people were watching me. BECKER: She came to believe that a group was plotting to hurt her and her two daughters, who were 2 years and 8 months old. CLIFFEL: So my brain is essentially taking all of these little details and knitting them together into this new alternate sense of terrifying truth wherein the entire city is out to get me and my girls. BECKER: It got worse when she got home. She thought the refrigerator was spewing poisonous gas and people on TV were threatening her. Throughout, she thought she needed to protect her kids. CLIFFEL: My husband's got our two baby girls in our bedroom, and I punched him in the face trying to get to them. BECKER: At the same time, a sense of paranoia overcame her, and she tried to get to the roof of her apartment building. CLIFFEL: In my mind, I was thinking if I showed I'd be willing to jump from the roof, that would - just showing I'd be willing would prove my loyalty and sort of save us. BECKER: Her husband called 911. CLIFFEL: I was handcuffed on the floor of our Lower East Side apartment. My kids were artfully distracted by watching Elmo in our bedroom. BECKER: During her 12 days in a psychiatric hospital, a doctor convinced her to take medications to help her, as she describes it, reattach to reality. Eventually, she got a diagnosis. CLIFFEL: It took about two months, and only when I was in the seat of a reproductive psychiatrist, for somebody to say, you had postpartum psychosis. And that moment of somebody naming it was so helpful to me. BECKER: She got better taking the mood stabilizer lithium, which is shown to be highly effective. Medical experts say, although postpartum psychosis is temporary and treatable, it can be dangerous and misdiagnosed. SUSAN HATTERS-FRIEDMAN: This is the scariest mental illness that I know of. BECKER: Dr. Susan Hatters-Friedman is a reproductive and forensic psychiatrist. She says one of the big problems is that postpartum psychosis is not listed as a distinct diagnosis in what's known as the DSM. That's the handbook used to identify mental health conditions. So patients often have a hard time getting proper care. HATTERS-FRIEDMAN: These things are happening to you, and you've got this dependent little person with you. And it's not listed in the DSM, and doctors might not recognize what's going on. BECKER: Postpartum psychosis is estimated to occur in 1 to 2 of every 1,000 births, making it more common than sudden infant death syndrome. But parents and their doctors are far less likely to be informed about it. Dr Veerle Bergink is with Mount Sinai Health System in New York. VEERLE BERGINK: We know that we don't train our doctors in it, that it's massively missed. BECKER: In Clancy's case, prosecutors say she deliberately planned to kill her kids. It was not sudden psychosis, as the defense argues. Bergink has treated hundreds of women with postpartum psychosis but has not treated Clancy and is not involved in the trial. She says Clancy's symptoms are clear. BERGINK: For me, it's a very classical, typical story of a woman with postpartum psychosis not being diagnosed, not being treated. BECKER: Mom Meghan Cliffel is now a writer and mental health advocate. She and many maternal health experts hope that the national attention from this trial will improve postpartum screening and education. CLIFFEL: You care about this now when it's at the center of this, you know, dramatic and tragic trial, but you don't care about this enough to change how we support women and families in this country. BECKER: Four years after Cliffel's ordeal with postpartum psychosis, she went on to have a third child with the proper care and medication. Her children are now 13, 11 and 6 years old. For NPR News, I'm Deborah Becker in Boston. (SOUNDBITE OF TAY IWAR SONG, "REFLECTION STATION") Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Postpartum mental health is at the forefront of a trial going on in Massachusetts. Lindsay Clancy has pleaded not guilty to murdering her three children in 2023, and her defense hinges on the dangerous condition known as postpartum psychosis. Medical experts and women who have experienced this disorder say that this trial shows the need for more understanding and education. From member station WBUR, Deborah Becker reports. DEBORAH BECKER, BYLINE: In Clancy's trial this week, her healthcare providers testified about the medications she was prescribed and her deteriorating mental state. Women who've struggled with postpartum psychosis say it's been difficult to hear. Meghan Cliffel was a new mom of two when her symptoms began. MEGHAN CLIFFEL: It's wild how quickly it happened, and also how, in my case, how logically I was acting but in a deluded reality. BECKER: Cliffel was riding the subway home from her job in New York City in 2015 when her thoughts started to unravel. CLIFFEL: I went to sort of from feeling a little off all day to suddenly believing people were watching me. BECKER: She came to believe that a group was plotting to hurt her and her two daughters, who were 2 years and 8 months old. CLIFFEL: So my brain is essentially taking all of these little details and knitting them together into this new alternate sense of terrifying truth wherein the entire city is out to get me and my girls. BECKER: It got worse when she got home. She thought the refrigerator was spewing poisonous gas and people on TV were threatening her. Throughout, she thought she needed to protect her kids. CLIFFEL: My husband's got our two baby girls in our bedroom, and I punched him in the face trying to get to them. BECKER: At the same time, a sense of paranoia overcame her, and she tried to get to the roof of her apartment building. CLIFFEL: In my mind, I was thinking if I showed I'd be willing to jump from the roof, that would - just showing I'd be willing would prove my loyalty and sort of save us. BECKER: Her husband called 911. CLIFFEL: I was handcuffed on the floor of our Lower East Side apartment. My kids were artfully distracted by watching Elmo in our bedroom. BECKER: During her 12 days in a psychiatric hospital, a doctor convinced her to take medications to help her, as she describes it, reattach to reality. Eventually, she got a diagnosis. CLIFFEL: It took about two months, and only when I was in the seat of a reproductive psychiatrist, for somebody to say, you had postpartum psychosis. And that moment of somebody naming it was so helpful to me. BECKER: She got better taking the mood stabilizer lithium, which is shown to be highly effective. Medical experts say, although postpartum psychosis is temporary and treatable, it can be dangerous and misdiagnosed. SUSAN HATTERS-FRIEDMAN: This is the scariest mental illness that I know of. BECKER: Dr. Susan Hatters-Friedman is a reproductive and forensic psychiatrist. She says one of the big problems is that postpartum psychosis is not listed as a distinct diagnosis in what's known as the DSM. That's the handbook used to identify mental health conditions. So patients often have a hard time getting proper care. HATTERS-FRIEDMAN: These things are happening to you, and you've got this dependent little person with you. And it's not listed in the DSM, and doctors might not recognize what's going on. BECKER: Postpartum psychosis is estimated to occur in 1 to 2 of every 1,000 births, making it more common than sudden infant death syndrome. But parents and their doctors are far less likely to be informed about it. Dr Veerle Bergink is with Mount Sinai Health System in New York. VEERLE BERGINK: We know that we don't train our doctors in it, that it's massively missed. BECKER: In Clancy's case, prosecutors say she deliberately planned to kill her kids. It was not sudden psychosis, as the defense argues. Bergink has treated hundreds of women with postpartum psychosis but has not treated Clancy and is not involved in the trial. She says Clancy's symptoms are clear. BERGINK: For me, it's a very classical, typical story of a woman with postpartum psychosis not being diagnosed, not being tr