Last fall, I had the great pleasure of creating the Post-Partum Wisdom Summit, where I interviewed 20 practitioners in various specialties (food allergies in breastfeeding, new fatherhood, specific post-partum foods, occupational and pelvic floor therapy, hilot post-partum healing, new motherhood identity, advocacy, etc.) whose expertise can help mothers and fathers navigate the often-unfamiliar terrain of new parenthood. Among them was Dr. Diana Barnes, editor and contributing author of Women’s Reproductive Mental Health Across the Lifespan and past president of Postpartum Support International.

That experience left me wondering: If more people truly understood the complexities of postpartum mental health—and postpartum psychosis in particular—might the response to the recent Clancy case have been different? Perhaps we would be having more thoughtful conversations about what this mother and her family are going through.

Please listen to this very important interview.

18 mins: differentiations between post-partum and differing diagnoses.

26 minutes: post-partum psychosis.

31 minutes: criminal homicide.

The key is understanding that the law and medicine can view psychosis very differently. Under the M’Naghten Rule, the legal question centers on whether a person understood the nature of the act or knew it was wrong. Clinically, however, psychosis involves an impaired ability to determine what is real. This is where, as Dr. Barnes says, “law and science run up against each other all the time.”

For those who may not fully understand what it’s like to give birth and care for a baby during that first year—while knowing something isn’t right, but not knowing what it is or where to turn—thank you for opening your mind and heart to understanding this experience through those eyes.