is revisiting her experience with postpartum anxiety as stands trial in Massachusetts for the deaths of her three young children.
Clancy, 36, is charged with murdering her children Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in 2023. Her defense team has argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis after the birth of her third child.
Amid the trial, Milano, 53, reshared an essay she originally penned in May 2018 about her own struggles after becoming a mother. stressed that postpartum anxiety and postpartum psychosis are different conditions and that her experience should not be equated with Clancy’s.
“A note before reading: Postpartum anxiety and postpartum psychosis are different conditions, and my experience is not Lindsay Clancy’s. But the trial has brought renewed attention to a truth that connects them: maternal mental-health symptoms must be recognized, believed and treated with urgency,” Milano wrote in a new introduction to the essay on her .
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In the essay, Milano recalled developing postpartum anxiety after giving birth to her son Milo in 2011, two years after suffering a miscarriage.
Milano had created a “strict birth plan” during her pregnancy, according to TheWrap, but complications arose 10 days before her due date.
“Despite my plan, the doctors had to try to induce labor. I was forced to take an epidural, and I eventually delivered my beautiful son (after 18 hours of labor and three and a half hours of pushing) via C-section. And then, with my darling son in my hands, I was in excruciating pain not only from my C-section but also, from my milk coming in.
“That first night, after we returned from the hospital, I suffered my first anxiety attack. I felt like I had already disappointed my child. I felt like I failed as a mother, since I was not able to give birth vaginally or nourish him with the breast milk that had not come in yet. My heart raced. My stomach seized up. I felt like I was dying.”
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Milano’s “paralyzing anxiety” returned a few months later after Milo had a seizure in her arms.
When she returned to work, the star’s anxiety “worsened” and she developed “irrational and obsessive fears”.
She later sought help and was in a public psychiatric ward for three days.
The Commando actress has described her psychiatrist and therapist as “angels”, but admitted not everyone is fortunate enough to receive similar help.
“Here’s the thing about mental illnesses: you don’t always look sick, and the answers are not always clear or black-and-white. But we should not confront these challenges by placing more hurdles in front of Americans who desperately need the care,” she added. “I was lucky enough to have the means and the insurance to get the help and support I needed. What happens to those mothers who don’t have the kind of support I received?”