Lindsay Clancy’s Trial and Postpartum Psychosis: A Spotlight on a Medical Emergency
BBC Homepage
Skip to content
Accessibility Help
Your account
Home
News
Sport
Earth
Reel
Worklife
Travel
Culture
Future
Music
TV
Weather
Sounds
More menu
More menu
Search BBC
Home
News
…
Lindsay Clancy’s trial put postpartum psychosis in the spotlight. Experts want progress to follow
Image source: Reuters
By Ana Faguy
Published 1 hour ago
Warning: This story contains distressing details and discussion of attempted suicide
A month before Lindsay Clancy killed her three children, she revealed to her mother and then-husband that she had been experiencing "thoughts of harming the children".
Paula Musgrove, Clancy’s mother, testified that during this time, her daughter would express:
"’This isn’t me, I’ve never been like this before.’ And I would agree, because she wasn’t," Musgrove shared.
Clancy does not dispute carrying out the killings but pleads not guilty to murder charges. Her defense argues that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time, a condition they claim impaired her ability to understand the wrongfulness of her actions.
Paul Zeizel, a clinical and forensic psychologist, testified on Wednesday:
"She was unable to conform her behavior to the rule of law and she had no appreciation for the wrongfulness of her act."
Prosecution argues that Clancy made a deliberate decision to kill her children – Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months.
Postpartum Psychosis: A Medical Emergency
Postpartum psychosis is considered one of the most severe complications a woman can experience after giving birth, according to experts consulted by the BBC. It remains unclassified in medicine’s psychiatry encyclopedia.
The illness gained significant attention as Clancy’s trial neared its one-month mark, sparking conversations about mental health issues that new mothers might face.
What is Postpartum Psychosis?
Meghan Cliffel, a New York resident, experienced symptoms during her eight months postpartum from the birth of her second daughter. She began hallucinating and became convinced she was being followed, recruited for a cult, and that people – including her husband – were out to get her and her daughters.
Susan Hatters-Friedman, a forensic psychiatry professor at Case Western Reserve University, describes the condition:
"Psychosis in general as a term means that the person’s out of touch with reality, and that often includes hallucinations, hearing things, seeing things that aren’t there, delusions, which are fixed false beliefs that are not consistent with your culture."
On the day of the killings, Clancy played happily with her children outside building a snowman, according to her former husband Patrick Clancy.
