The Lindsay Clancy Trial: A Therapist's Perspective on the System That Wasn't There

This article was written on August 13, 2026, during Day 13 of testimony in the Lindsay Clancy trial. The trial is ongoing. The perspectives expressed here are based only on the information and testimony publicly available thus far. They are not conclusions regarding Lindsay Clancy's diagnosis, criminal responsibility, or the ultimate facts of the case.

I have been following the Lindsay Clancy trial closely.

As a therapist, as someone who works with women navigating infertility, pregnancy, postpartum mental health, anxiety, trauma, and motherhood, there is one phrase I keep hearing:

"The system failed her."

But after listening to the testimony presented thus far, I keep coming back to a different thought.

What system?!?!

To say the system failed Lindsay Clancy implies that there was a comprehensive system designed to catch women when they begin to fall.

A coordinated system where obstetric providers, psychiatrists, therapists, primary care providers, hospitals, and families are communicating with one another.

A system where a mother can say, "Something is wrong," and someone takes responsibility for figuring out what.

A system where women's mental health is treated with the same urgency as their physical health.

A system where a postpartum mother experiencing a psychiatric crisis doesn't have to become her own case manager while simultaneously trying to survive it.

That is not the system we have.

The Question Is Much Bigger Than Lindsay Clancy

Three children died.

Cora.

Dawson.

Callan.

Nothing about discussing maternal mental health should minimize the unimaginable loss of their lives.

And acknowledging failures in women's mental healthcare does not require anyone to reach a particular conclusion about Lindsay Clancy's criminal responsibility.

Two things can be true.

We can hold the horror of what happened to three innocent children.

And we can ask very difficult questions about what happens when a mother repeatedly enters our healthcare system saying that something inside of her is profoundly wrong.

The jury will ultimately be asked to answer legal questions.

But as a therapist, I think the rest of us need to be asking a different one:

What are we going to learn from this?

We Tell Women to Ask for Help

This may be the part of this case that has been most difficult for me to sit with.

We constantly tell mothers:

"Ask for help."

"Tell someone if you're struggling."

"Don't suffer in silence."

"Reach out."

But "asking for help" is not a treatment plan.

A woman can make the phone call.

She can attend the appointment.

She can tell someone that she isn't okay.

She can walk into a hospital.

She can take the medication.

She can follow the recommendations.

And she can still fall through enormous gaps between providers, levels of care, diagnoses, and systems that were never truly connected in the first place.

We cannot continue placing the entire responsibility for accessing appropriate mental healthcare on the person whose mental health may be deteriorating.

Postpartum Mental Illness Is Not Just "The Baby Blues"

We need to stop treating postpartum mental health as a footnote to childbirth.

Perinatal mental health conditions exist on a spectrum.

Postpartum depression is not postpartum anxiety.

Intrusive thoughts are not automatically psychosis.

Postpartum psychosis is not simply "really bad postpartum depression."

These distinctions matter.

Postpartum psychosis is rare, affecting approximately 1 to 3 out of every 1,000 births. It can involve delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, disorganization, and dramatically impaired insight.

It is a psychiatric emergency.

And while the overwhelming majority of people experiencing postpartum mental health conditions will never harm their children, untreated postpartum psychosis carries a documented risk of devastating outcomes.

Rare cannot mean unimportant.

Especially when the consequences of missing it can be catastrophic.

Women's Mental Health Deserves More Than a Screening Questionnaire

We've made progress in talking about postpartum depression.

But screening is only meaningful if there is somewhere for a woman to go after she screens positive.

We can hand a new mother a questionnaire at her six-week postpartum visit.

I have heard from many mothers who do not even answer the questionnaire truthfully in fear of their baby being taken from them.

We can ask whether she's anxious.

We can ask whether she's depressed.

We can ask whether she's having thoughts of harming herself.

But what happens after she answers "yes"?

Who owns the next step?

Who makes sure she actually receives the appropriate level of care?

Who is looking at the entire clinical picture?

Who notices when she has seen multiple providers?

Who recognizes when treatment isn't working?

Who connects the dots?

A screening tool can identify risk.

A screening tool cannot become the system.

Motherhood Does Not Protect Someone From Serious Mental Illness

There is another uncomfortable belief we need to confront.

We want to believe that a "good mother" could never become dangerously mentally ill.

That belief is comforting.

It is also dangerous.

Mental illness does not care how much you love your children.

It does not care whether you're educated.

It does not care whether you're a nurse.

It does not care whether you have a supportive spouse, a beautiful home, or access to healthcare.

And sometimes being high functioning makes suffering harder to see.

A person can look put together and be profoundly unwell.

A mother can go to the gym, make dinner, answer questions appropriately, care for her children, and still be experiencing significant psychiatric symptoms.

Functioning is information.

It is not immunity.

We Need to Take Women Seriously Before Something Terrible Happens

Too often, women's symptoms are normalized.

Of course you're exhausted. You have a baby.

Of course you're anxious. You're a mom.

Of course you're overwhelmed. You have three young children.

Of course you're not sleeping.

But there is a point where normalization becomes minimization.

Women deserve clinicians who are trained to recognize when ordinary postpartum adjustment has crossed into something requiring intervention.

They deserve continuity.

They deserve communication between providers.

They deserve access to specialized perinatal mental healthcare.

They deserve treatment before their suffering reaches an emergency.

And they deserve to be believed when they say:

"Something isn't right."

Maybe the System Didn't Fail Because There Wasn't One

That is what keeps coming back to me as I watch this trial.

Perhaps asking whether "the system failed" is the wrong question.

Because a collection of individual providers is not necessarily a system.

Appointments are not a system.

Prescriptions are not a system.

Referrals are not a system.

A system has continuity.

A system communicates.

A system has somewhere for people to go when outpatient therapy isn't enough but the threshold for hospitalization hasn't been met.

A system doesn't require a person in psychiatric distress to navigate a maze of phone calls, waitlists, insurance requirements, referrals, assessments, and disconnected medical records.

And a functioning system should not require tragedy before we examine where the gaps are.

Three Children Should Still Be Here

At the center of every conversation about this case must remain Cora, Dawson, and Callan.

They should be here.

Nothing we learn about postpartum mental illness changes that.

Nothing about examining healthcare gaps diminishes their lives or the magnitude of their deaths.

If anything, their deaths demand that we be willing to have this conversation honestly.

Not to excuse.

Not to diagnose from afar.

Not to decide a verdict before a jury does.

But to ask whether we are willing to build something better.

Women's Mental Health Is Healthcare

Pregnancy changes a woman's body dramatically.

We monitor blood pressure.

We monitor blood sugar.

We monitor fetal development.

We monitor physical recovery after birth.

Mental health deserves the same seriousness.

Perinatal mental healthcare cannot continue to be something we discuss only after a tragedy makes national headlines.

Women deserve specialized care before they're in crisis.

Families deserve education about warning signs.

Providers deserve better training and clearer pathways for escalation.

Mental health professionals need meaningful ways to communicate across disciplines.

And mothers need somewhere to go when "I'm not okay" becomes something much more serious than those words can convey.

We don't yet know how the Lindsay Clancy trial will end.

Today is only Day 13.

There is more testimony to hear, more evidence to be presented, and ultimately a jury that will decide the legal questions in this case.

But we don't need to wait for a verdict to acknowledge something much larger.

Women's mental health needs to be taken seriously.

Not after tragedy.

Not when someone finally meets the threshold for hospitalization.

Not when a woman becomes "sick enough."

Before.

Because asking women to reach out for help only works when we've built something capable of catching them when they do.