Few crimes disturb the public more profoundly than a mother killing her own children. Such a case cuts against one of society’s deepest instincts: the belief that a mother’s role is to protect her child.
That is why the case of Lindsay Clancy has drawn intense attention around the world, particularly after it was dramatically declared a mistrial last week.
The basic facts of what unfolded inside the Massachusetts home of the mother of three in January 2023 are not in dispute.
Clancy, then 36, strangled her children — five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan — before trying to end her own life by jumping from a second-storey window, an attempt that left her paralysed.
What also appears central to the case is her mental state at the time, with postpartum psychosis cited as a key factor — a severe condition that can involve delusions, hallucinations and a profound break from reality.
And that is why I find it so disturbing that, after a week of deliberations, the jurors could not all agree on what seems so painfully apparent.
The case has captured attention far beyond America, not least because it raises deeply uncomfortable questions about how we understand postpartum mental illness.
Those questions may be particularly stark in the US, which, unlike Ireland and Britain, has no specific infanticide law recognising the impact childbirth can have on a mother’s mental state.
But the lack of comprehension and the stigma of suffering from poor postpartum mental health exposed by the Clancy trial is certainly not confined to America.
For women the world over, this case is deeply triggering – particularly for those of us whose first weeks of motherhood bore little resemblance to the fabled baby bubble we were expecting, and was instead overshadowed by something akin to hell on earth.
When my first daughter was born in December 2014, following a traumatic labour and emergency Caesarean, I initially felt deliriously happy.
I remember clearly how I could not sleep on the first night; my thoughts racing with excitement and this new, all-consuming love for my beautiful little girl.
I remember clearly how I could not sleep on the first night; my thoughts racing with excitement and this new, all-consuming love for my beautiful little girl. Photo: Lisa Brady
Two weeks later, they were still racing – only now they were flooded with terror.
A fleeting thought – what if I dropped my baby? – would spark a relentless carousel of horrific scenarios.
A fleeting thought – what if I dropped my baby? – would spark a relentless carousel of horrific scenarios. Almost any ordinary household object or scenario suddenly held sinister undertones. A bath, a blanket, a kitchen knife.
What if somehow, I harmed this tiny baby I adored?
One case I had read about two years earlier, involving a mother who killed her two young children, lodged itself in my brain and replayed endlessly.
I was so frightened I couldn’t sleep. I felt physically sick with fear. I couldn’t even look at my daughter. And perhaps most worryingly of all, I was too ashamed to tell anyone. Because what sort of mother has thoughts like that? Was I some kind of monster?
And perhaps most worryingly of all, I was too ashamed to tell anyone. Because what sort of mother has thoughts like that? Was I some kind of monster?
Thankfully, I confided in my husband, and eventually found myself sitting opposite psychiatrist Dr Anthony McCarthy at Holles Street, whose expertise and compassion saved my life.
He explained how thoughts are not intentions. I had postpartum OCD and my thinking pattern was completely opposed to who I was.
So it’s no wonder the world is transfixed by the Lindsay Clancy case, which sensationally was declared a mistrial last week
I retained insight. I knew these thoughts were horrifying and irrational (that is importantly different from psychosis, where delusions or hallucinations are experienced as reality).
I was treated with medication, but it didn’t work straight away, and those six weeks remain among the darkest of my life.
I remained suspended in fear; unable to truly bond with my baby. And worst of all, I thought I was an anomoly, that no other new mothers could ever have suffered this.
I felt completely, terrifying alone – because nobody talked about this particular version of new motherhood.
Proper mental-health checks during the so-called fourth trimester should be a given, not something a woman accesses only when she reaches breaking point. We monitor babies relentlessly after birth – their weight, feeding, nappies, sleep and development – while too often asking new mothers little more than whether they are ‘doing OK’.
Proper mental-health checks during the so-called fourth trimester should be a given, not something a woman accesses only when she reaches breaking point.
Ireland may be better equipped legally to understand mental illness in cases such as Clancy’s, but we still have much work to do. Initiatives such as the Year of Care campaign – founded by mum-of-two Aolish Gormley, following her own experience of delayed postnatal depression – calls for publicly funded postnatal support to extend from the six-week check to one year postpartum, with mental-health screening and treatment, physical recovery services and community-based support.
Ireland may be better equipped legally to understand mental illness in cases such as Clancy’s, but we still have much work to do.
There are few crimes more shocking than a mother taking the lives of her children
Initiatives such as the Year of Care campaign – founded by mum-of-two Aolish Gormley, following her own experience of delayed postnatal depression – calls for publicly funded postnatal support to extend from the six-week check to one year postpartum, with mental-health screening and treatment, physical recovery services and community-based support.
But perhaps the hardest thing to shift is the stigma around postpartum mental health; the lack of general understanding that new maternal love and mental illness can and do at times coexist.
In a perfect world, no mother would have to suffer such darkness, but life is rarely straightforward. What would help immeasurably is ensuring no woman believes she is alone in it.
