Postpartum Psychosis Is in the Spotlight.We Need to Talk About It Without Creating More Fear.

Brighter Balance Counselling
Evidence informed community mental health article

Content note: This article discusses postpartum psychosis, suicide and the deaths of children. Australian support services are included below.

Postpartum psychosis is in the spotlight

Over recent weeks, postpartum psychosis has entered public conversation in a way it rarely does.

The ongoing trial of American mother Lindsay Clancy, who is charged with murdering her three children in Massachusetts in 2023, has generated international media coverage and intense discussion about maternal mental health.

Her defence argues that she was experiencing postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible for her actions. Prosecutors dispute this, and expert witnesses have offered differing opinions about her mental state. It is important not to make assumptions about a diagnosis or legal responsibility before the court reaches its conclusion.

Regardless of the eventual verdict, the case has put a little understood psychiatric condition into the spotlight. That presents an opportunity, but also a responsibility.

We can talk about postpartum psychosis without suggesting that mothers experiencing mental illness are inherently dangerous. We can acknowledge rare and devastating outcomes without allowing those outcomes to define an entire diagnosis. Most importantly, we can make sure parents know that experiencing a serious mental illness after having a baby does not make someone a bad mother. It means they are unwell and need appropriate care.

What is postpartum psychosis?

Postpartum psychosis, also called postnatal psychosis, is a rare but serious psychiatric condition that generally develops rapidly following childbirth.

PANDA reports that postnatal psychosis affects approximately one to two women or birthing parents in every 1,000 births. It usually begins within the first four weeks after birth, although it can begin later in the postpartum period.

Symptoms can include hallucinations, delusions or unusual beliefs, extreme confusion or disorganised thinking, paranoia, unusually elevated energy or agitation, severe depression, rapidly changing moods, significant changes in behaviour and profound sleep disturbance.

Symptoms can fluctuate. A person may appear relatively well at one point and significantly unwell at another. This can make postpartum psychosis particularly difficult for families, and sometimes professionals, to recognise.

It is not the baby blues. It is also different from postnatal depression, postnatal anxiety and intrusive thoughts that can occur with other perinatal mental health conditions. Postpartum psychosis is considered a medical emergency.

The bigger picture of perinatal mental health in Australia

While postpartum psychosis itself is uncommon, mental health difficulties during pregnancy and early parenthood are not.

PANDA reports that perinatal mental ill health affects around 100,000 Australian families each year. Around one in five expecting or new mothers and one in ten expecting or new fathers experience symptoms of perinatal anxiety or depression.

Gidget Foundation Australia reports supporting 4,270 families in the 2025 financial year and has provided more than 100,000 appointments since its inception.

These numbers remind us that becoming a parent is not automatically protective against mental illness. For some people, pregnancy and early parenthood represent a period of significant psychological vulnerability.

There remains enormous pressure to present motherhood in a particular way: grateful, bonded, capable and happy. When someone's internal experience looks nothing like that picture, shame can become another barrier to asking for help.

A diagnosis does not make someone dangerous

This point deserves particular emphasis while postpartum psychosis is appearing so frequently in media coverage.

Postpartum psychosis can involve serious risks to the parent or baby, which is why suspected psychosis requires urgent professional assessment. However, public discussion needs to avoid turning a rare psychiatric condition into a stereotype about dangerous mothers.

If every public conversation about postpartum psychosis occurs only after a child has died, we risk unintentionally teaching women that disclosing frightening symptoms will cause other people to see them only as dangerous.

Fear of judgement can prevent disclosure. Early disclosure is exactly what gives health professionals and families an opportunity to intervene.

You are no less of a mother because you became mentally unwell

From a psychological and counselling perspective, this is one of the messages we need to say much more loudly.

Mental illness does not measure someone's love for their child. Needing medication does not measure someone's ability to be a mother. Being admitted to hospital does not mean someone has failed at motherhood. Experiencing hallucinations, delusions, depression, anxiety or frightening thoughts does not erase who that person was before becoming unwell.

Sometimes one of the most difficult parts of recovery is not simply recovering from the acute symptoms. It is making sense of what happened afterwards. There can be grief, shame, fear, loss of confidence, trauma associated with hospitalisation, questions about identity and motherhood, fear about another pregnancy and difficulty reconnecting with a baby or trusting yourself again.

This is where psychological therapy can become an important part of longer term recovery, alongside appropriate psychiatric and medical treatment.

Postpartum psychosis is treatable

This is perhaps the fact most easily lost in frightening headlines. People recover from postpartum psychosis.

PANDA states that many people fully recover with the right treatment, rest and support. Early treatment provides the best chance of a quicker and safer recovery.

Treatment usually requires urgent specialist psychiatric assessment and often hospital admission. Depending on the individual, care can include medication, support to stabilise sleep, close monitoring, rest in a safe structured environment, medical assessment and ongoing psychological and family support. Some hospitals have Mother and Baby Units where a parent and baby can stay together.

Counselling should not replace emergency psychiatric treatment during acute psychosis. Once someone is medically stable, psychological support can play an important role in processing the experience, reducing shame, rebuilding identity and confidence, supporting relationships and connection with baby, and planning for future wellbeing.

The warning sign we need to talk about more: sleep

Having a newborn and being tired often go together. But there is a difference between being exhausted because a baby is waking you and being unable to sleep even when someone else has the baby and you have the opportunity to rest.

PANDA identifies inability to sleep, even when the opportunity is present, as an important early warning sign of postnatal psychosis. When severe insomnia occurs alongside sudden personality or behavioural changes, unusual beliefs, paranoia, confusion, hallucinations, extreme agitation or dramatically elevated mood, urgent assessment is needed.

Families should not feel they need to wait until they have proof that something is seriously wrong.

Recommendations and calls to action

1. Talk about perinatal mental health before there is a crisis. Education about postpartum psychosis should form part of antenatal and postnatal care, including education for partners and families.

2. Ask more than 'Are you okay?' Ask about sleep. Ask about frightening thoughts. Ask whether someone feels like themselves. Ask whether anything feels strange, unreal or unusually significant.

3. Listen to partners and family members. A person experiencing psychosis may not recognise that they are unwell. Family observations about changes in behaviour, sleep, thinking and functioning can be vital.

4. Reduce the shame associated with psychiatric care. Going to hospital for postpartum psychosis is healthcare. It is not a parenting failure.

5. Improve continuity between services. GPs, maternity services, psychiatrists, psychologists, emergency departments, child and family health services and community mental health teams need clear pathways for sharing information and escalating concerns.

6. Expand access to specialist perinatal mental health services and Mother and Baby Units. Treatment should support safety while, wherever clinically possible, protecting attachment and the developing parent and infant relationship.

7. Tell recovery stories too. If tragedy is the only time society hears the words postpartum psychosis, fear and stigma become attached to the diagnosis.

A call to the wider community

If you are an expectant or new parent, tell someone when something does not feel right. You do not have to wait until you are sick enough to deserve support.

If you are a partner, friend or family member, take sudden changes seriously, particularly severe insomnia, confusion, unusual beliefs, hallucinations, paranoia or dramatic changes in mood and behaviour.

If you are a health professional, ask directly about mental health, sleep and changes in thinking, and listen carefully to information from families.

As a community, we need to change the language surrounding maternal mental illness. A mother experiencing postpartum psychosis is not a failed mother. She is not weak. She is not automatically dangerous. She is a person experiencing a serious health condition who deserves timely, compassionate, evidence based care.

The Lindsay Clancy case is confronting. The circumstances are tragic, and questions of diagnosis and criminal responsibility belong with the court hearing the evidence. The broader conversation, however, belongs to all of us.

If this moment teaches us anything, I hope it teaches us to recognise postpartum mental illness earlier, respond without judgement and make it safer for mothers to say, 'Something isn't right. I need help.' And for our response to be, 'We believe you. Let's get you the right support.'

Australian support

Postpartum psychosis is a medical emergency. If you believe you or someone else may be experiencing psychosis after childbirth, seek urgent professional assessment.

Immediate danger: Call 000 or attend the nearest emergency department.

PANDA National Perinatal Mental Health Helpline: 1300 726 306.

NSW Mental Health Line: 1800 011 511, 24 hours a day.

Lifeline: 13 11 14, 24 hours a day.

Gidget Foundation Australia provides specialist perinatal psychological services, including Gidget House and Start Talking Telehealth. Gidget Foundation Australia is not a crisis service.

Sources and further reading

PANDA, Postnatal psychosis: www.panda.org.au/get-support/support-postnatal-psychosis

PANDA, Signs and symptoms of postnatal psychosis: www.panda.org.au/articles/postnatal-psychosis-signs-and-symptoms

PANDA, What is perinatal mental ill health?: www.panda.org.au/articles/what-is-perinatal-mental-ill-health

Gidget Foundation Australia: www.gidgetfoundation.org.au

Pregnancy, Birth and Baby, Postpartum psychosis, reviewed March 2026: www.pregnancybirthbaby.org.au/womens-health/mental-health/postpartum-psychosis

Brighter Balance Counselling
This article provides general information and does not provide a diagnosis or replace individual medical, psychiatric or psychological advice.