What Postpartum Psychosis Actually Looks Like — and Who Gets Missed

Postpartum psychosis, a rare but severe mental health emergency, has drawn renewed public attention during the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the 35-year-old Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three children.

A special episode of the CBS News program "Healthful" takes up the questions the case has raised: what the warning signs of a mental break are, and whether the health care system is failing new mothers.

In the episode, host Norah O'Donnell speaks with Dr. Uruj Kamal Haider, a perinatal psychiatrist who has treated patients experiencing the condition. Perinatal psychiatry focuses on mental health during pregnancy and the period after childbirth, when some women develop symptoms far more serious than the mood changes commonly described as the "baby blues."

The program also features Kriti Lodha, who survived postpartum psychosis and has since made it her mission to help other mothers going through the same crisis.

Clancy has been charged with murder in the deaths of her three children. The allegations against her have not been resolved, and the case has become a focal point in a broader public debate over how postpartum mental illness is recognized, diagnosed and treated in the United States.

Advocates and clinicians have argued that screening for serious postpartum conditions is inconsistent, and that families often do not know what symptoms should prompt emergency care. The "Healthful" episode frames those gaps as the central question: whether mothers in acute distress are being identified in time, and what happens when they are not.

The episode is the fifth in the series.