Ok, getting off on a major tangent here, but I
wanted to correct something about Andrea Yates (the
woman in Texas who killed her five children). She was
not suffering (or, if you prefer, is not claiming to
have been suffering) from postpartum depression. She
was suffering from postpartum psychosis, which is a
completely different phenomenon. In any psychosis, the whole
point is that you have lost touch with reality and can
easily become legally insane -- that is, not knowing the
difference between right and wrong. It is a documented
medical condition; primarily, women with manic depression
are prone to it (about 30% of manic depressive women
will develop postpartum psychosis).
So
basically: No, postpartum depression -- the more common form
-- nine times out of ten doesn't lead to killing the
baby. But postpartum psychosis -- which is pretty rare
-- has been known to do that if the family and
doctors don't keep a careful eye on the women at
risk.
Kristin Hamlin