Women of Color with PMHDs: Still Not Human Enough To Be Humanized
By Hajara Kutty
Like many in the perinatal mental health community, I was grateful to see The New York Times and The New Yorker dedicating their prized real estate to the topic of postpartum psychosis (PPP) earlier this month. It was refreshing for once to see media giants humanize a condition that for too long has been the Voldemort of perinatal mental illnesses. Both outlets offered coverage that went beyond the gruesome and sensational details of PPP stories. However, it must be noted that what was absent from both pieces were the stories and experiences of women of color with PPP.
The New York Times piece was over 2000 words and The New Yorker one was over a whopping 5000 words. Multiple cases of women who had experienced PPP were mentioned, with each outlet referencing 4 other women aside from the story of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts postpartum mother who was charged with taking the lives of her three children in 2023. And yet, not one of the 8 cases mentioned across both pieces involved a woman of color. This is perplexing especially when you consider that there is no shortage of PPP stories involving women of color that could have been included.
Examining infanticide cases from 2023 reveals similar stories of tragedy involving several BIPOC children. All of these, like the many cases cited in both pieces, were tragic and involved mothers believed to be suffering from severe postpartum mental illness. Some of these women’s names that could have been referenced include Erin Merdy, Dimone Fleming and Paulesha Green-Pulliam. Going further back than 2023 would no doubt have offered even more names.
Both articles offered insights into the struggles moms face in getting help for PPP and the inadequacies of the American healthcare system in caring for moms with serious mental illness. However, this was also where a huge opportunity to highlight stories of women of color was missed. There are countless studies and articles documenting the additional barriers BIPOC women experience in accessing help for perinatal mental health disorders (PMHD). These include having higher rates of PMHDs but not being screened at equivalent rates as non-BIPOC women, being over-represented among those who lack health insurance, and experiencing deadly racism in the health care system at large. Despite this grim context, the two pieces chose to highlight exclusively stories of middle-class white women. The absence of any mention of BIPOC women’s experiences leaves the story incomplete, despite how in-depth these high-profile articles appear to be on the surface.
What is not included in a story says just as much as what is included. Advocacy work is about making our voices heard on issues that matter, but in doing so it’s always important to consider whose voices are being missed. The pieces in The New York Times and The New Yorker were great at humanizing a condition that for too long has been vilified and misunderstood. But it was also a stark reminder that some of us are still not seen as worthy of being humanized. Until all our stories matter, ignorance will remain and tragedies will persist.
