About two weeks after giving birth, Bridget María Chesterton was curled up on the bathroom floor, saying things that made little sense. Later, in the emergency room, she kept repeating, “What’s going on?” She’d lost touch with reality.
The family eventually learned that Chesterton had postpartum psychosis, a severe mental health disorder thrust into the spotlight by the case of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts woman on trial for strangling her three children. A key question is whether postpartum psychosis drove Clancy to do it.
Researchers estimate that the condition — a mental health emergency that is less common than postpartum depression — afflicts 1 to 2 out of 1,000 women after delivery. Although most who develop postpartum psychosis don’t harm their children, mothers with severe cases may try to harm themselves or their kids.
If not for medication and strong family support, Chesterton said her own situation “could have gone sideways.”
Chesterton bristles at online comments about the Clancy case suggesting postpartum psychosis is not a real disorder. She feels driven to raise awareness by sharing her story publicly; a poem she wrote about the experience will be published in a journal in the fall. She wants to dispel misconceptions about the widely misunderstood condition — and let families know there is hope.
“It’s something that we do not talk about as a society,” said Chesterton, a 52-year-old history professor who lives outside Buffalo, New York. “I’m not embarrassed about what happened. I want people to know about it.”
A mom was fine at first, then ‘in bad shape’
Chesterton and her husband James Fitzsimmons wanted a baby desperately and underwent fertility treatment for years. She finally got pregnant in her mid-40s and had severe asthma during the pregnancy that put her in the hospital. She gave birth to her daughter by C-section in January 2019, about two months early.
“Everything about bringing her into the world was awful,” Chesterton said. “It was the longest seven months of my life.”
Just after the birth, the baby was hurried off to the neonatal intensive care unit, where she spent her first weeks of life. To protect the child’s privacy, The Associated Press is withholding her name at the family’s request.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.
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Chesterton went home and seemed fine at first. But the day Fitzsimmons found her on the bathroom floor, her family said, she had trouble remembering basic details of her life and made strange comments, such as “it’s meditation day” even though she doesn’t meditate. Fitzsimmons called his wife’s mom, Maria Chesterton, who met the couple at the hospital.
“She didn’t even remember having a baby,” the elder Chesterton said. “She knew us vaguely.”
People with certain conditions are more likely to be affected
Disorganized thinking and delusions are among the symptoms of postpartum psychosis, which also may include hallucinations, paranoia, agitation and mood changes. Postpartum depression, by contrast, is a mood disorder affecting about 1 in 7 women after giving birth — or more, according to some research.
Postpartum psychosis can happen to anyone after giving birth, but the chances are higher for people with certain mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder. Chesterton didn’t have such conditions, said Dr. Emily Williams of Buffalo OB/GYN, one of her doctors.
Chesterton was transferred to BryLin Hospital in Buffalo, which provides crisis mental healthcare, and spent about two weeks there. Her mom, who was staying at the couple’s house to help out, remembers visiting her with food and Valentine’s Day chocolates.
When she was released, she did OK for a few days, her mom remembers, then “just lost it.” She stared blankly ahead, not knowing where she was or what was happening. But she did manage to aggressively express that she didn’t want to go back to the same place she’d just left, so she was institutionalized involuntarily.
“We had no choice,” her mother said. “She was in bad shape.”
She stayed for another two weeks — apart from her baby.
“I was kind of lucky that she was in the NICU,” Chesterton said, “because we had somebody to take care of her when I was so sick.”
Medication and family support help a mom recover
Chesterton believes antipsychotic drugs ultimately brought her back to reality. But just as essential was the support of her family. When the baby came home after nearly two months at the hospital, her team of helpers included her husband, mom, dad and a postpartum doula.
“She helped me learn how to take care of the baby, remember her — you know, to become a parent again,” Chesterton said, adding that she knows how lucky she is that her family had the resources to provide such care.
Williams, the doctor, said family support is crucial in the postpartum period even if everything is going well. “The more hands on deck, the better,” she said.
Over the next several months, it was as if a fog slowly lifted.
“We could see improvement in her. It was a little bit at a time,” her mother said. “She was taking care of the baby. The glassy-eyed look was gone.”
Chesterton stayed on antipsychotics for about a year. By her daughter’s first birthday party, she was back to normal.
Doctor encourages families to be on alert for signs of trouble
Williams said Chesterton’s family did the right thing when they took quick action after symptoms arose. Sometimes, the doctor said, people may deny that something so serious could be wrong with a loved one’s mental health and attribute signs of postpartum psychosis to things like needing more sleep.
Chesterton’s mother advised other families to be vigilant for signs of the illness, then come together to shepherd loved ones through it.
“If my daughter would not have had the support system,” she said, “I don’t know how this would have turned out.”
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
