*There’s Lindsay Clancy and now Takiyah Babers. They have two things in common. One, they either murdered their children in the case of Clancy or two, are alleged to have murdered their child as in the case of Babers.
Clancy strangled her three children. Babers allegedly dumped her four-month-old child in a trash bin.
The other thing in common is that in both cases postpartum depression gets the blame for their heinous acts.
Clancy nearly got acquitted in her celebrated trial for murder. Her prime defense was postpartum depression and attendant mental health challenges.
The majority of jurors bought it. That almost certainly will be a defense for Babers if she ever comes to trial for the alleged murder of her child.
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There’s good and bad news about postpartum depression and baby harm or worse murder. The good news is that it’s extremely rare. That is that a mother suffering such extreme anxiety, depression, and mental exhaustion from childbearing and caring rarely harms their child. How rare? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Cases estimates that there are roughly five hundred known cases of parents killing their children yearly.
That’s a lot of women with the condition. And each one like Clancy and Babers represents a potential mental ticking time bomb in relation to their children. The equally bad news is that the signs of the condition are often very visible. Clancy got all sorts of treatment and counseling for her condition. It’s unknown what if any treatment Babers got for her alleged condition. However, in the wake of her alleged killing, it was widely noted that she had been struggling with the condition.
Clancy got mountains of public attention before, during and after her trial for the sensational horror of murdering her three children. Babers will likely not get anywhere near the same attention; However, she’ll still be in the public and legal spotlight. The dumping of a baby in a trash bin can’t’ help but get public attention and revulsion.
The bad news, though, is that an estimated one in eight mothers suffer from postpartum depression. That’s about twelve percent of mothers.
The one silver lining as such with Babers as with Clancy is that the repulsive act stirs debate and focus on what and how intensely postpartum depression should be recognized and treated.
California has the Safely Surrendered Baby Law which provides a new mother with a bailout for an unwanted baby by allowing her to release it to state custody.
The law stands as agonizing recognition that some babies are at risk from some mothers. Sadly, Babers was not one of those mothers who, if she knew about the measure and the way out it gave her, chose to take it.
Her baby would be alive and well if she had. She, like Clancy, would not be hideous public testament to the peril some babies face from the one person on the planet they would ever expect to endanger them. That’s their mothers.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is The Garbaging of America” (Amazon ebook and Middle Passage Press)
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