Mass. hearing spotlights bill to require reproductive-psychiatric evaluation for mothers accused of crimes within 12 months postpartum

A bipartisan panel of clinicians, survivors and legislators urged the Joint Committee on the Judiciary to report favorably on H.1924/S.1171, a bill that would permit defendants who gave birth within the previous 12 months to be examined by an expert in reproductive psychiatry and to receive medically appropriate treatment when perinatal psychiatric illness is a factor in alleged criminal conduct.

"Postpartum psychosis is not common, occurring 1 to 2 per 1,000 live births," said Dr. Lee Cohen, director of the Center for Women's Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School. "But this serious perinatal psychiatric illness is treatable with readily available medications and appropriate therapy."

Supporters, including Representative Jim O'Day and clinicians from Massachusetts General Hospital and UMass, framed the bill as narrowly targeted: it would allow examination by a reproductive-psychiatric expert; permit judges to consider perinatal mood and anxiety disorders as mitigating factors at sentencing; and create a process for treatment and, in specified circumstances, resentencing…