Massachusetts governor proposes improved postpartum healthcare after Clancy trial
BOSTON -- New parents in Massachusetts should receive better support and postpartum care, Gov. Maura Healey said Tuesday, following the high-profile murder trial of Lindsay Clancy who, her attorneys argued, was suffering from unresolved postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children in 2023.
Healey proposed providing free home visits by nurses to all parents with newborns as well as updated regulations governing mental health screening of new mothers.
“To every mom who has struggled with her mental health before, during or after pregnancy, I want you to know we see you — I see you,” Healey said during a visit to Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
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“We need to talk more openly about this,” said Healey, who signed a maternal health law in 2024 that expanded access to doulas, midwives and birth centers, and required insurers to cover postpartum depression screenings.
Both sides agreed that Clancy killed her three children, then tried to take her own life by jumping from a second-floor window. The Massachusetts mother is now paralyzed from the waist down. Her attorneys argued she could not be held criminally responsible because of postpartum psychosis, while prosecutors said she should be found guilty because evidence indicated she knew what she was doing was wrong.
A mistrial was declared when jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict.
Healey, a Democrat, said she plans to ask state lawmakers to approve $2 million for a program aimed at offering home visits to all families welcoming the roughly 68,000 newborns in Massachusetts each year. No families would be required to participate, but those who do can have a nurse visit and answer questions about feeding, sleep, and caring for a new baby. The nurse would also monitor mothers' postpartum health, as well as screen for depression and other mental health concerns.
This would be the first state investment in a federally funded program that currently provides nurse visits to about 3,000 families each year, Healey said.
Healey also proposed a $250,000 investment in the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms and directed the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to update state regulations on perinatal mental health screenings to identify concerns during and after pregnancy.
Giving birth can be one of life’s most joyous experiences, Healey said, “but it’s also one of the most challenging.”
“For new mothers, it can be exhausting, isolating and overwhelming,” she said.
Massachusetts has long been a national leader in expanding access to health care, with one of the lowest uninsured rates in the U.S. Its landmark 2006 health care law, which sought near-universal coverage, became a model for key parts of the federal Affordable Care Act.
Yet maternal care gaps remain. Mental illness, including substance use disorder, was the leading underlying cause of death for pregnant women and new mothers in Massachusetts from 2019 through 2024, accounting for 38%, according to the state’s maternal mortality review committee. The panel also concluded that 85% of those deaths were preventable and more than half occurred between seven days and one year after giving birth.
