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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. Despite the war with Iran, rising inflation and other huge stories, the trial of Lindsey Clancy has captivated national attention for months. This is the incredibly tragic story of a mother who, under postpartum psychosis she says, killed her children and tried to kill herself. Throughout the trial, a big question emerged: Do we as a society truly understand postpartum depression and psychosis and their impacts? Today on the show, you'll hear from the leader of a local nonprofit that helps mothers and families better understand and cope with postpartum depression and psychosis. She'll explain her organization's efforts through her own personal story. Then, at the end of the show, one of our reporters will discuss local policy action against data centers.
Dunne: Lyndsie Leech, executive director of WellMama, thanks so much for coming in and talking with us.
Lyndsie Leech: Thanks for having me.
Dunne: Let's start with this. Some people may not know what your organization does. What is WellMama all about?
Leech: WellMama is a nonprofit based in Eugene, and we provide perinatal wellness services. At our core, we believe nobody should have to navigate pregnancy, postpartum loss or early parenthood alone. We bring people together with similar stories to connect and get support through our free support groups, wellness services, and one-on-one care with our trained peer support specialists. We do that through our support line, in-person meetings, or in the community, and we offer that in English and Spanish.
Dunne: Do you serve all of Lane County, the Eugene area? What's your service territory?
Leech: We mostly serve the Eugene-Springfield area. We also have a lot of virtual programming and a 24/7 text support line that's available throughout Oregon.
Dunne: Postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis have been in the news a lot lately. I'd love for you to explain to people who may not know what they are and how serious they can be.
Leech: To answer that, I'll take us back to my own story. Ten years ago, I had just had my second baby. Every day I'd get my baby and toddler ready, strap them into their car seats and drive to work. Turning onto that stretch of Highway 99 into Eugene, my brain would start sending me visions of veering straight into traffic. I know them now as intrusive thoughts, but I didn't know that at the time. These thoughts kept telling my hands to turn, and it became an everyday battle in my mind to stop them. As my mental health got worse over the following weeks and months, there was one day my brain said, 'Wouldn't that be a relief? Wouldn't that be the answer to this struggle we've been feeling?' That was the day I stopped trusting that I could win that battle, and I stopped driving for a good while because I was so scared. It was a really difficult time in my life, clouded by everything else I was going through with postpartum depression. But that was a clear moment for me that I was not winning. One in four of us will experience some version of what I went through, or one of the other mental health challenges that can come with pregnancy and postpartum.
Dunne: Is there a difference between postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis?
Leech: Absolutely. Postpartum depression is generally similar to depression in general, though there are some different symptoms. The most unexpected ones people I work with mention are things like, 'I'm really irritable and I have these moments of uncontrollable rage.' About 90% of people diagnosed will experience the intrusive thoughts I mentioned earlier. But the difference is that you're terrified of these thoughts and you don't want them to come true, so you take measures, like not driving, to stop yourself from acting on the images your brain gives you. Psychosis is completely different. It's a total loss of connection with reality: seeing or hearing things other people don't, developing beliefs that aren't based in reality, becoming extremely paranoid or confused. If someone with psychosis has these thoughts, they aren't scared of them. They believe them and act on them, and that's when it becomes extremely dangerous. It's a medical emergency.
Dunne: With the case that's captured national attention, I'll admit I'd heard of postpartum depression, but I don't know that I'd ever heard of postpartum psychosis until now.
Leech: It's fascinating, because even though we in my field know this happens, it's rare. About one or two per 1,000 births, so roughly 5,000 cases across the U.S. every year. It's something that happens and something really scary, but there isn't a formal, official DSM diagnostic code for it. Schizophrenia has a code; this doesn't.
Dunne: I see. Even given that, and maybe a few decades ago, people have told me a lot of general mental health disorders went unreported because people were afraid to talk about them. Are we still there with postpartum depression? Is it underreported and underdiagnosed?
Leech: I do believe so. The leading cause of death in the perinatal period is mental health-related: suicide is the number one cause of death, above any physical complication at birth. That's a scary thing, and if we accept that, it highlights the lack of reporting, which points to a continuation of the shame and stigma around having depression, and that fear keeps people from speaking out. It also exposes a lack of access to appropriate care in diagnosis, the quantity and availability of care, and the training and understanding of providers in our medical system and their ability to successfully treat these disorders, because they are treatable and preventable.
Dunne: Through your own experience, and in talking with clients, what can a woman do to better advocate for herself in dealing with postpartum depression or, hopefully not, but possibly, postpartum psychosis?
Leech: To expect someone who's very ill, overstimulated, tired and exhausted from having a baby to adequately advocate for herself is more than we can expect. But I think advocacy starts with education. We can educate ourselves, and it's really important to do that before you have the baby, if you're pregnant or even thinking about getting pregnant. Really educate yourself on your rights, including your rights in the hospital system. Can you ask for different options? A lot of times we're given one option as if it's the only one, but often we can slow down and say, 'That doesn't feel quite right to me. Can we try something different?' Usually the answer is yes. It might not give you the same outcome, but we can definitely advocate for ourselves, and we try to empower families and people to do that all the time. But again, it's really difficult to do in the moment. I go back to my experience, where I didn't tell anyone for years what was going on in my head. People are scared to talk about what's really happening in their brains and bodies because of that shame and fear, even of having their baby taken away. That's a visceral fear of being judged and perceived as not a good mother. I think that one really cuts deep.
Dunne: Sure. Let's get into it. Take us through your program.
Leech: We serve everybody, and it's important to highlight that dads, partners and family members can also go through postpartum depression and anxiety. This is a huge life transition: bringing another human into the world and being responsible for them naturally has consequences for our mental health. For anyone who comes to us, the first thing we do is listen. We don't start by telling someone what they should do. We trust them to be the experts on their babies, their bodies and their families, and we don't prescribe one set of things that's supposed to be right for parenting. We create a space where people can be honest without being judged, and then we ask, 'What feels most helpful to you right now?' We give them the power to ask for what they need. Sometimes that's joining a group, without any pressure to speak, because that can be really hard. Sometimes it's help finding a good therapist we trust, or talking with a medical provider; we can actually go with people and help them manage anxiety around appointments. There's a lot of flexibility in the type of care we provide, and it's really about meeting people where they are and walking alongside them. We're peers in this, and the power of saying, 'I've been in your position at some level. I understand what you're going through, and you're not alone. I'm here to be with you and help you along the way,' is super powerful and really can't be overstated.
Dunne: I became a dad 25 years ago, and I remember my wife and I took prenatal classes that did a great job preparing us for the birth. We met almost every week for months, and I think we talked about postpartum depression for maybe five minutes. Is that starting to change, and what should we as a society be thinking more about with this illness?
Leech: It is changing. We're talking about these things more, though we're certainly not at the end goal yet. I talk about it every day because that's my job, so I can lose sight of the common experience until something like this happens nationally, and I see some of the misunderstandings and how far we have to go. But we're doing that work on the individual level and on an advocacy and systemic level. At WellMama, we also provide training to medical providers across the state to expand that information and knowledge outward, so it's not just happening one person at a time.
Dunne: You recently held a summit with medical professionals. Tell us about that. I found it fascinating.
Leech: This year's summit is coming up Nov. 12 and 13. We encourage anyone who works with families at any level, or even individuals who just want to learn more, to attend. The training goes in depth on the different mental health conditions related to reproductive health, including a deep dive on postpartum psychosis this year. It offers continuing education credits for nurses, practitioners and social workers seeking certification. What strikes me is that people in these professions aren't often required to have training specifically in perinatal mental health, so that information remains a gap in our provider workforce. Not many people specialize in this work, though that's changing over time. We see this as incredibly important for providers and people in our community to understand more about these topics.
Dunne: A two-part question. If a woman is thinking about getting pregnant, what are some things she and her family might do in advance? Could they visit your organization for education? And second, if someone has just given birth and is having a difficult time, what are some warning signs that she needs to talk to someone?
Leech: We do postpartum planning individually and in group settings all the time at WellMama. I think this is really preventive, because if you've already developed a relationship with my team and with other pregnant people or people looking to start a family, and you feel comfortable in that environment and like you can talk to them about anything, you're already ahead of someone who has the baby, starts to feel unwell, and months later is in a crisis situation without knowing anybody and feeling really alone. We've had people who have been with us for years. They came to us while pregnant and got that postpartum planning information. They met people. I've seen families who have gone through loss who knew exactly what to do and exactly where to go because they'd already built those relationships. The way they're able to recover and heal from those terrifying experiences is so much gentler because they've built that community. So if you're thinking about getting pregnant, if you already are, or if you're postpartum and struggling, there's never a wrong time and never a wrong door to enter and get support.
Dunne: She is Lyndsie Leech, executive director of WellMama. Thank you so much for talking with us.
Leech: Thanks.
Dunne: Now let's check in with our reporter, Rebecca Hansen-White, about another local story on data centers and the challenges these entities face with municipalities. KLCC's Rebecca Hansen-White, always great to talk with you. Thanks for coming in.
Rebecca Hansen-White: Always great to be here.
Dunne: You did a story recently about data centers. They're having a moment, probably not in the way they'd want. Give us an update on what's happening at the former Hynix site in Eugene.
Hansen-White: At the former Hynix, or Hyundai, plant, there was a request for a zone clarification. There's no specific plan yet for a data center of a particular size, so a local land use lawyer, on behalf of a client we don't know, asked the city to verify whether a data center would be a compatible use in the E1 zone. The city looked at it and determined no, and I can give you some of the specific reasons why it doesn't fit.
Dunne: Yeah, tell us that.
Hansen-White: There are two main reasons. First, the E1 zone is an employment zone, something the city created for businesses that hire and have a lot of people working there. Specific types of businesses can operate there that have lower impacts on their neighbors and a lot of workers. The applicant argued that a data center could be considered an IT services business and asked whether it could locate there. The city's planning director said probably not. Her reasoning was that data centers don't have very many people working at them; once built, they're a pretty low-employment operation. Second, to quote her, data centers notoriously have external impacts. Neighboring businesses and people in those communities would likely notice some tough impacts. Those include, she said, diesel generators used as backup power, which have noise and pollution impacts, and air and water cooling systems; the water used for cooling warms up, raising the potential for PFAS contamination.
Dunne: Those are the so-called forever chemicals, PFAS.
Hansen-White: Right. All of those potential external impacts were cited as a possible reason this might not be suitable for this zone, in addition to the fact that employment zones are meant for businesses with a lot of employees, which isn't really what data centers do.
Dunne: Sure. We don't know who the developer is or who the ultimate client would be, but a well-known organization in town, Beyond Toxics, got involved in this. Explain how they entered the picture.
Hansen-White: Beyond Toxics, in partnership with Fossil Free Eugene.
Dunne: Good distinction there.
Hansen-White: Right. Along with a number of other environmental and community groups, they wrote a letter a couple of weeks ago opposing the potential data center, asking the city to find it's not compatible with the E1 zoning. In the letter, they said the data center would be a huge potential source of pollution and would be disruptive to the community, so they've been asking the city to deny it and say no data centers in the E1 zone. Yesterday, and in their original letter, they also asked the city to go a step further and have the City Council pass a moratorium on data centers.
Dunne: This certainly won't be the last word on data centers. Rebecca Hansen-White, our intrepid reporter, thanks as always for coming in and explaining these great stories.
Hansen-White: Thank you.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon on the Record are available as a podcast at klcc.org. Monday on the show, you'll hear a conversation with Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read about his plans and expectations for the upcoming midterm elections, especially in light of the voting chaos the Trump administration seems to be causing nationwide. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon on the Record. Thanks for listening.
