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Read other letters about this article
...Post-partum psychosis can, sadly, be that bad. To say it's not is to show cruel ignorance I find surprising in Salon readers.
I know someone (no, it's not me) whose birth mother was so psychotic that she was repeatedly hospitalized after giving birth to her daughters. The father, who traveled most of the time for business, who'd come home to find the little girls unfed, unbathed, uncared for and his wife rocking and keening in a corner. And worse...until he found the courage to put them in foster care. The middle child, whom I know, is now a grown woman who copes with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome on an ongoing basis as a result of that early-childhood nightmare. She was fortunate enough to be adopted by a loving family. (This was back in the early '60s.)
The LW who referred to Rusty Yates, the physician, minister, et al, as being guilty is correct, IMHO. They saw this woman's suffering and chose to ignore it out of ignorance, stubbornness or some bats*hit-crazy religious belief. Where were the church congregants who should have/could have offered help? Where was the doctor who could have stepped in? Five children died because of them. They never got the second chance at some semblance of a healthy life that my friend got. To me, they are criminally negligent in a way Ms. Yates is not.
