Postpartum psychosis: How one lawyer turned tragedy into a global mental health movement
Twenty-five years after Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a Texas bathtub, the landmark case continues to reshape how the justice system and the medical community understand postpartum psychosis. At the center of that transformation stands George Parnham, the 85-year-old defense attorney who took on the nation's most vilified mother and turned her tragedy into a lifelong advocacy mission.
Parnham's unlikely bond with Yates, whom he describes as family, has influenced everything from Texas legislation to the creation of one of America's largest maternal mental health clinics. Now, as another high-profile postpartum psychosis case ends in mistrial in Massachusetts, the lessons from the Yates case are more relevant than ever.
What happened in the Andrea Yates case?
On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates called her five children, aged 6 months to 7 years, into the family bathtub and drowned them one by one. She believed her