Statement on the Lindsay Clancy Trial from National NOW President Kim Villanueva
WASHINGTON–What happened to the Clancy children in Massachusetts is a tragedy and a failure of a healthcare system that does not support women and medically gaslights those seeking care.
Lindsay Clancy should have received appropriate treatment for a psychiatric emergency. Millions of women who have experienced postpartum mental health disorders that were misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or trivialized are outraged. Prosecutors said America’s medical system was “not on trial here.” But we know it was.
Lindsay Clancy’s case exposes a much larger failure: maternal mental health care barely exists in the United States. There are only about 500 reproductive psychiatrists serving roughly 800,000 women who experience maternal mental health problems each year. Suicide and homicide are also major contributors to maternal mortality.
And this failure is part of a much longer history of medicine overlooking women. Women make up 51 percent of the U.S. population, yet have been historically underrepresented in clinical research. Women were not required to be included in federally funded clinical trials until 1993.
The message is simple: Believe women.
Postpartum psychosis is a rare, acute psychiatric illness that can develop within weeks of childbirth, causing hallucinations, delusions, mania, confusion and severe agitation. Yet it is not recognized as a distinct disorder in the DSM. Leading international experts have called for it to be recognized as a distinct category of mental illness.
Lindsay knew she was in crisis. She called suicide hotlines and was turned away. Over four months, doctors prescribed 13 different medications, yet no one adequately managed her treatment or addressed the underlying condition.
Women should not have to reach a point of tragedy before their pain is taken seriously.
Medical education, diagnostic standards and public policy must change. We need greater investment in maternal mental health research and care, including the reforms proposed in the Momnibus Act of 2026.
At Lindsay’s trial, women who came to support her spoke about experiencing their own “dark, dark, dark symptoms” after childbirth—and feeling that no one was paying enough attention.
One woman said, “It should not take tragedy for people to start paying attention to mental health.”
No, it shouldn’t.
Believe women. Treat women. And take maternal mental health seriously.