@TW: Boston area story of Infanticide/suicide

[icedcoffee]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11710075/Midwife-mother-strangled-three-children-death-overmedicated-prescription-drugs.html

They're claiming she was overmedicated on various prescription drugs. She'll be arraigned on Tuesday. Just so tragic.

The list of meds she was prescribed over 4 months is so long. I absolutely believe it could have been the meds. My H was dealing with some shit last year and his doctors prescribed him a few things that made him absolutely intoxicated. He could barely walk on Ativan. Another one he took caused him to fall down the stairs. I was really surprised how easily my H got them too.

Anyway---I don't know what my point is, but it's so sad.

[Bernadine]

Just want to share for anyone this might help- overly proportionate rage can be another sign of PPD, which I had no idea. I was SO MEAN to h during dd’s first year. Like, I would just snap and he’d get the brunt of it. I blamed it on lack of sleep and adjusting to parenthood, but was eventually diagnosed with PPD and meds made a huge difference.

[Scout'sHonor]

Woah to that list of drugs (if it's true, I know the Daily Mail isn't the best source). Many of those are not supposed to be prescribed at the same time. I get they were probably trying to throw anything at her to help, but that's a ton.

[Velar Fricative]

Feb 3, 2023 12:35:49 GMT -5 Scout'sHonor said:

Woah to that list of drugs (if it's true, I know the Daily Mail isn't the best source). Many of those are not supposed to be prescribed at the same time. I get they were probably trying to throw anything at her to help, but that's a ton.

Yeah, I'm skeptical of the source too, *but* I suppose it's possible they could have been prescibed at different times. But that time period is also fairly short - I would think you'd need time to give for the medication to kick in, as well as time for a gradual withdrawal (at least, that's the case with my Lexapro). So she could have been taking at least several at the same time. 

[icedcoffee]

Feb 3, 2023 12:35:49 GMT -5 Scout'sHonor said:

Woah to that list of drugs (if it's true, I know the Daily Mail isn't the best source). Many of those are not supposed to be prescribed at the same time. I get they were probably trying to throw anything at her to help, but that's a ton.

Apparantly it's the same article word for word as from the Boston Globe, but that has a paywall.  I haven't verified this statement though.   LOL

[Scout'sHonor]

Feb 3, 2023 12:40:07 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Feb 3, 2023 12:35:49 GMT -5 Scout'sHonor said:

Woah to that list of drugs (if it's true, I know the Daily Mail isn't the best source). Many of those are not supposed to be prescribed at the same time. I get they were probably trying to throw anything at her to help, but that's a ton.

Yeah, I'm skeptical of the source too, *but* I suppose it's possible they could have been prescibed at different times. But that time period is also fairly short - I would think you'd need time to give for the medication to kick in, as well as time for a gradual withdrawal (at least, that's the case with my Lexapro). So she could have been taking at least several at the same time. 

Oh yeah, several would be fine, it's just ALL of them at once that's worrying.  The ambien and trazodone would be for sleep. The seroquel is an antipsychotic while the rest are mood stabilizers. 

[scm1011]

Feb 3, 2023 12:46:36 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Feb 3, 2023 12:35:49 GMT -5 Scout'sHonor said:

Woah to that list of drugs (if it's true, I know the Daily Mail isn't the best source). Many of those are not supposed to be prescribed at the same time. I get they were probably trying to throw anything at her to help, but that's a ton.

Apparantly it's the same article word for word as from the Boston Globe, but that has a paywall.  I haven't verified this statement though.   LOL

Its not word for word but the paragraph listing the dozen meds is the same. That family was so massively failed  

[gretchenindisguise]

I really dislike the spin that the medication caused this horrific act.

[sonrisa]

Feb 3, 2023 13:51:09 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

I really dislike the spin that the medication caused this horrific act.

Also, Multiple medications doesn't mean all at once and the very fact they can't be taken together might be why the list is so long.

Let's try X.
X isn't working? Let's try Y.
Y gives you this bad side effect? Let's try Z. But Z can't be taken with A, so we will need to switch that to B.

[scm1011]

Feb 3, 2023 15:17:05 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Feb 3, 2023 13:51:09 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

I really dislike the spin that the medication caused this horrific act.

Multiple medications doesn't mean all at once and the very fact they can't be taken together might be why the list is so long.

Let's try X.
X isn't working? Let's try Y.
Y gives you this bad side effect? Let's try Z. But Z can't be taken with A, so we will need to switch that to B.

Fair, but they noted this was all between October - December which seems excessive in my admittedly non-expert opinion. 

[Velar Fricative]

Feb 3, 2023 15:17:05 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Feb 3, 2023 13:51:09 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

I really dislike the spin that the medication caused this horrific act.

Multiple medications doesn't mean all at once and the very fact they can't be taken together might be why the list is so long.

Let's try X.
X isn't working? Let's try Y.
Y gives you this bad side effect? Let's try Z. But Z can't be taken with A, so we will need to switch that to B.

I think we can understand that, but I took gretchenindisguise's comment as a worry that more new parents could be hesitant to speak with their doctors about medication in general for fear that this can be the outcome, even if such an outcome is so incredibly rare versus all the positive outcomes from the right treatment plan. And that was a concern of mine too when I saw that article, even if I also understand her defense attorney is trying to do his job too. 

[sonrisa]

Feb 3, 2023 15:20:56 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Feb 3, 2023 15:17:05 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Multiple medications doesn't mean all at once and the very fact they can't be taken together might be why the list is so long.

Let's try X.
X isn't working? Let's try Y.
Y gives you this bad side effect? Let's try Z. But Z can't be taken with A, so we will need to switch that to B.

I think we can understand that, but I took gretchenindisguise 's comment as a worry that more new parents could be hesitant to speak with their doctors about medication in general for fear that this can be the outcome, even if such an outcome is so incredibly rare versus all the positive outcomes from the right treatment plan. And that was a concern of mine too when I saw that article, even if I also understand her defense attorney is trying to do his job too. 

Sorry - I agree with Gretchen and meant to be supplementing her point, not undermining it.

[gretchenindisguise]

Feb 3, 2023 15:19:28 GMT -5 scm1011 said:

Feb 3, 2023 15:17:05 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Multiple medications doesn't mean all at once and the very fact they can't be taken together might be why the list is so long.

Let's try X.
X isn't working? Let's try Y.
Y gives you this bad side effect? Let's try Z. But Z can't be taken with A, so we will need to switch that to B.

Fair, but they noted this was all between October - December which seems excessive in my admittedly non-expert opinion. 

Without knowing more about dosage and start/stop - there is no way to know if it was excessive.

But I will say that the med-list didn’t make me bat an eye. I have significant experience in field.

[Scout'sHonor]

Feb 3, 2023 15:29:45 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

Feb 3, 2023 15:19:28 GMT -5 scm1011 said:

Fair, but they noted this was all between October - December which seems excessive in my admittedly non-expert opinion. 

Without knowing more about dosage and start/stop - there is no way to know if it was excessive.

But I will say that the med-list didn’t make me bat an eye. I have significant experience in field.

True, the article doesn't necessarily say "all at once". I wasn't looking at it as the medication causing, just a possible interaction of meds on top of an already serious mental health crisis. 

[icedcoffee]

I just want to point out that this isn't the public/media saying her meds were excessive. This is the route her $$$ defense lawyer is using to plead her case so it seems like it's probably her H who is claiming the meds were excessive.

I understand not wanting to overshadow the idea that at the end of the day we need better postpartum care and wanting to avoid the idea that meds=bad (I mean...I'm on lexapro. I understand how good they can be), but sometimes meds can cause bad things.

[lillaguma]

Feb 3, 2023 11:57:42 GMT -5 Bernadine said:

Just want to share for anyone this might help- overly proportionate rage can be another sign of PPD, which I had no idea. I was SO MEAN to h during dd’s first year. Like, I would just snap and he’d get the brunt of it. I blamed it on lack of sleep and adjusting to parenthood, but was eventually diagnosed with PPD and meds made a huge difference.

This definitely isn't talked about enough. I finally learned about Postpartum Rage when DS was almost 2, and I was like holy crap, I didn't know it was a thing but I definitely had that alongside my postpartum anxiety. I was so angry and so mean to both DH and DD, who was 4 at the time. I just wanted to smack DD all the time, and before having my second I had never even yelled at her. I would also snap about the littlest things - DH would always leave the wipes open and one sticking out when he changed the baby, and when I would go to change the baby next and would find a dry wipe on top I would completely lose it. Like wanting to scream at him about it, and sometimes would even call him at work to yell about it because I was so angry. But I didn't want to tell anyone how I was feeling, I thought I was just a horrible mother and that if I told someone how I was feeling they would take my kids away from me. I happened to see a graphic on instagram about postpartum rage and wish so badly I had known that was a thing, I would have been so much more open to trying to get help. 

DS was also a terrible sleeper and I was so sleep deprived that first year. I look back on that time as just being so sad and awful. I wish so badly that I had gotten help. 

[gretchenindisguise]

Feb 3, 2023 15:31:23 GMT -5 Scout'sHonor said:

Feb 3, 2023 15:29:45 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

Without knowing more about dosage and start/stop - there is no way to know if it was excessive.

But I will say that the med-list didn’t make me bat an eye. I have significant experience in field.

True, the article doesn't necessarily say "all at once". I wasn't looking at it as the medication causing, just a possible interaction of meds on top of an already serious mental health crisis.

You may not be saying that the meds were causing it, but as icedcoffee said - the lawyer absolutely is. 

From the article

"The mother's defense attorney is now saying 'horrific overmedication' of prescription drugs that 'caused homicidal ideation, suicidal ideation' may have been a trigger - saying the medicine turned her into a 'zombie'." 

'One of the major issues here is the horrific overmedication of drugs that caused homicidal ideation, suicidal ideation,' 

'The black letter law definition of lack of criminal responsibility in Massachusetts says that if a person suffers from a mental disease or defect. In Massachusetts, if you have involuntary intoxication, that would be a defect.'  

'It's over medication, absolutely over medications - possibly with a component of post-partum depression.'

*****
I think the lawyer is obviously trying to protect his client, but the diagnosis of "post partum depression" and/or "post partum psychosis" is already sufficient to meet the lack of criminal responsibility definition he's trying to meet. I see it as lessening the devastating impact that post partum depression/psychosis/anxiety can have by implying that it alone isn't sufficient to cause harm - only the addition of the medications made it sufficient.


Additionally, his trashing of the medicines has the potential to really impact women's perceptions of these medicines and taking them and there is already so so so much reluctance to take psychiatric medications. But we all know this will now run wild and absolutely people will think "should I even be taking this medicine, or will it make me harm my children?" It just added a piece that likely wasn't necessary and has the potential to cause so much harm.

[gretchenindisguise]

Feb 3, 2023 15:37:27 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

I just want to point out that this isn't the public/media saying her meds were excessive. This is the route her $$$ defense lawyer is using to plead her case so it seems like it's probably her H who is claiming the meds were excessive.

I understand not wanting to overshadow the idea that at the end of the day we need better postpartum care and wanting to avoid the idea that meds=bad (I mean...I'm on lexapro. I understand how good they can be), but sometimes meds can cause bad things.

I don't know that this is true in terms of intentional harm to others. There was research into increased suicide ideation, but that's been debated recently - with research showing that black box warnings led to an increase in completed suicides instead of a decrease. www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/January-2022/Recent-Study-Calls-for-Reevaluating-Antidepressant-Warnings

[Pilsy]

I'm probably out over my skis here, but I feel like this guy should have done more homework before going to the press.

PPD and PPP aren't the same, and the distinction seems essential here. I also have feelings about the lack of context and details regarding the medications. I wonder if any of this will affect the tremendous outpouring of support she and Patrick have received. I don't mean to imply it will or should, I just wonder. I feel like he's coming out swinging, and it just seems like the wrong strategy to me.

[icedcoffee]

Her attorney requested an emergency hearing to have a forensic psychologist evaluate her and it was granted.

[fryjack2]

I wasn't going to comment because this story is close to me, but I am nervous about the overmedicated, aka blame the physician, narrative beginning to happen.

Everyone working in mental health knows how difficult it is to find the right combo of meds and nothing works quickly.

I have nothing but extreme sympathy and empathy for all involved.

[basilosaurus]

Feb 3, 2023 13:18:38 GMT -5 Scout'sHonor said:

Feb 3, 2023 12:40:07 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Yeah, I'm skeptical of the source too, *but* I suppose it's possible they could have been prescibed at different times. But that time period is also fairly short - I would think you'd need time to give for the medication to kick in, as well as time for a gradual withdrawal (at least, that's the case with my Lexapro). So she could have been taking at least several at the same time. 

Oh yeah, several would be fine, it's just ALL of them at once that's worrying.  The ambien and trazodone would be for sleep. The seroquel is an antipsychotic while the rest are mood stabilizers. 

Seroquel can also be used for sleep. I've been on it for years since trazodone wasn't really effective.

Ambien alone made me really nuts. 12 hours after I got in my car and made it 2 blocks before realizing I was not safe to drive. I was in my way to my therapist, so we did Skype. She laughed at how drunk/stoned I appeared. We ended up rescheduling because I was useless.

[icedcoffee]

I’ll be interested to see how this ends because I also heard she was inpatient and wanted to stay but insurance coverage ran out and made for switch to 5 day a week outpatient and if that’s true fuck the insurance companies for ever and ever and ever. amen.

[Saudade]

Feb 4, 2023 15:12:37 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

I’ll be interested to see how this ends because I also heard she was inpatient and wanted to stay but insurance coverage ran out and made for switch to 5 day a week outpatient and if that’s true fuck the insurance companies for ever and ever and ever. amen.

This happens so frequently, IP is typically covered for 3 days. Many of my repeat psych patients in the ER would get out and be sent back in because of this.

[ksun]

Feb 4, 2023 7:22:14 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

Feb 3, 2023 13:18:38 GMT -5 Scout'sHonor said:

Oh yeah, several would be fine, it's just ALL of them at once that's worrying.  The ambien and trazodone would be for sleep. The seroquel is an antipsychotic while the rest are mood stabilizers. 

Seroquel can also be used for sleep. I've been on it for years since trazodone wasn't really effective.

Ambien alone made me really nuts. 12 hours after I got in my car and made it 2 blocks before realizing I was not safe to drive. I was in my way to my therapist, so we did Skype. She laughed at how drunk/stoned I appeared. We ended up rescheduling because I was useless.

I had a patient about 15 years ago who was on ambien and stabbed herself in the knee. I've heard a lot of bizarre stories of things people have done on Ambien

[scm1011]

Feb 4, 2023 19:54:40 GMT -5 ksun said:

Feb 4, 2023 7:22:14 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

Seroquel can also be used for sleep. I've been on it for years since trazodone wasn't really effective.

Ambien alone made me really nuts. 12 hours after I got in my car and made it 2 blocks before realizing I was not safe to drive. I was in my way to my therapist, so we did Skype. She laughed at how drunk/stoned I appeared. We ended up rescheduling because I was useless.

I had a patient about 15 years ago who was on ambien and stabbed herself in the knee. I've heard a lot of bizarre stories of things people have done on Ambien

I had a roommate on it many years ago who would get up in the middle of the night and eat obscene amounts of food (like full packages of Oreos, a 6 pack of yogurts, everyone’s leftovers from the fridge, etc), leave the carnage out, go back to bed, and then have zero recollection of having done it..

[AJL]

Feb 3, 2023 11:57:42 GMT -5 Bernadine said:

Just want to share for anyone this might help- overly proportionate rage can be another sign of PPD, which I had no idea. I was SO MEAN to h during dd’s first year. Like, I would just snap and he’d get the brunt of it. I blamed it on lack of sleep and adjusting to parenthood, but was eventually diagnosed with PPD and meds made a huge difference.

This was my number one PPD symptom and it took forever to find a clinician that would diagnose me appropriately. 

[Birdie]

Jan 30, 2023 14:04:34 GMT -5 pugz said:

this is just so sad. After my friend's experience with post partum anxiety after having twins she lobbied her representative and got a bill passed that now requires pediatricians to do PPD/PPA screenings of parents the first year because new moms see their baby's doctor so often but only see their doctor once, 6 weeks after baby is born. The hope is that they will catch these things sooner an get moms the help they need. I'd like to see a similar policy in every state.

My pediatrician was the only one who asked me if I was "ok". It was a week after my first was born and I burst into tears as soon as she asked. I think it's crazy that new moms aren't even seen by a doctor until 6 weeks later.

[icedcoffee]

She was arraigned today. She'll be allowed to stay in the hospital where she's at and then be transferred to an inpatient mental health facility awaiting trial.

The details the prosecutor presented were horrible. It sounds like it was premeditated and she woke up in the hospital remembering it all and asked if she needs an attorney present.

[eddy]

Feb 6, 2023 12:11:22 GMT -5 Birdie said:

Jan 30, 2023 14:04:34 GMT -5 pugz said:

this is just so sad. After my friend's experience with post partum anxiety after having twins she lobbied her representative and got a bill passed that now requires pediatricians to do PPD/PPA screenings of parents the first year because new moms see their baby's doctor so often but only see their doctor once, 6 weeks after baby is born. The hope is that they will catch these things sooner an get moms the help they need. I'd like to see a similar policy in every state.

My pediatrician was the only one who asked me if I was "ok". It was a week after my first was born and I burst into tears as soon as she asked. I think it's crazy that new moms aren't even seen by a doctor until 6 weeks later.

My H just had a hernia repair. He had a 2 week check up for essentially a couple lapscopic scars. He also had two calls from his surgery team the days after to see how he was doing. 
I had a whole ass c section and NO ONE looked at that thing for 6 weeks. No one called me to see how I was healing. Nothing. And that doesn't even consider the emotional toll we all go with the change in hormones, the challenge of a newborn etc.

Absolutely unacceptable