‘Pregnancy Depression’ on Trial With O.C. Mother

SANTA ANA — Jackie Lynn Anderson had been there before--denying to herself and others that she was pregnant.

But this pregnancy was different. This time her baby died after she gave birth, by herself, in the bathroom of her mother’s Fullerton townhome. Her mother found the newborn’s body in a cardboard box the next day while searching the trunk of Anderson’s car.

A medical examiner determined that the 5-pound boy was born alive Aug. 11, 1995, but died from a lack of appropriate care at delivery.

Prosecutors charged the 38-year-old woman with murder, alleging she has shown a pattern of reckless negligence, including the abandonment in 1992 of a half-day-old girl who survived.

Anderson and her attorney contend she was suffering a psychotic breakdown--a total loss of reality triggered by a rare pregnancy-related depression that only intensified during her four previous deliveries, the children of which were adopted or placed with relatives.

The unusual defense of pregnancy-related depression has had mixed results in the courts. Sentences for woman who have killed hours-old infants have ranged from lengthy prison terms to acquittals to treatment in psychiatric hospitals.

“People want to believe that every woman should be happy and love their children and be perfect mothers,” Anderson said in an interview at the Orange County Women’s Jail, where she has been incarcerated the last 17 months. “But some are really depressed. If I can help one person not go through this or do something awful like this, I will help forgive myself.”

Prosecutors reject Anderson’s description of her problems.

“It’s a case of complete irresponsibility and negligence on behalf of the mother who gives birth to the child and basically doesn’t do anything to help sustain the kid’s life,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Gary Paer said. “Under the law, a parent has a duty to furnish necessary clothing, food, shelter and medical attention for his or her minor child.”

Anderson has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Her Orange County trial begins Tuesday.

Recent examples point up sharp differences in the way these cases are viewed.

In 1994, Caroline Beale, a tourist from London, was arrested at Kennedy Airport in New York and charged with murdering her newborn daughter, whose body she was carrying under her coat in a sealed plastic bag.

Her incarceration caused outrage in Britain, where there is a “presumption of illness” for a mother who, suffering from depression, harms or kills her infant. Such women face manslaughter charges and treatment, rather than prison. Eventually, she was allowed to return home for treatment.

More recently, a pair of 18-year-old college freshmen in Delaware were charged with murdering their newborn son, whose body police found in a trash bin, wrapped in plastic. The two face a possible death penalty if convicted.

Legal experts say the the wide range of sentences reflects the divisions within the psychological community about pregnancy-related mental disorders and the fiercely protective emotions that the deaths of infants stir.

“We still have a lot to learn, I think we can all agree on that,” said Jane Honikman, director of Postpartum Support International, a worldwide prevention and awareness network. “When things don’t go according to the mythologies that surround pregnancy, we are left sort of throwing our hands up in disbelief. This is age-old.”

Some researchers say the dynamics of neonaticide--a killing within the first few hours of life--differ dramatically from other cases of infanticide that are more commonly associated with postpartum mental illness.

Postpartum disorders typically range from the mild and common “baby blues” to the rare and dangerous postpartum psychosis, linked in studies with a tremendous upheaval of hormones following childbirth.

About one in 1,000 women suffer a psychotic episode after childbirth, including delusions and hallucinations, according to studies. About 3% of those mothers kill their babies; about 3% kill themselves.

Postpartum psychosis gained national attention as a legal defense nearly 10 years ago in the case of an Anaheim housewife who drove over her 6-week-old son and put the body in a trash can. A jury found Sheryl Massip guilty of murder, but a judge later overturned the verdict, finding the woman not guilty be reason of insanity caused by postpartum psychosis.

Phillip Resnick, a professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland who coined the term neonaticide, is one expert who sees tremendous differences between cases of postpartum psychosis such as Massip and women who kill their infants shortly after birth.

Since the latter group typically deny they are pregnant, they do not form emotional bonds with the child, he said.

“It’s just like getting rid of a foreign body, rather than thinking of it as human or as your offspring,” Resnick said.

Other researchers say neonaticides can result from psychosis, triggered by the changing hormones at childbirth, and even during pregnancy.

Susan Hickman, a San Diego psychologist who specializes in pregnancy-related depression, said women who kill their newborns have likely experienced an untreated postpartum disorder in a previous pregnancy or delivery.

In denying their pregnancies, Hickman said, the women become “disassociated from reality,” moving in what many will describe as a dreamlike state.

Anderson has described moving in a similar blur during several of her pregnancies, including her last. But psychiatrists who examined her are divided about whether or not she was insane at the time of her delivery.

“I did not acknowledge my pregnancy, per se,” Anderson said. “I was an alcoholic. I had very little contact with my family. I have been depressed all of my life.”

Anderson delivered her first child at 16, placing the baby up for adoption and finishing high school. She eventually held various jobs, including her last as a credit manager.

In 1980 she gave birth to a son, who now lives with his father. After that pregnancy, Anderson said, she started drinking heavily.

She delivered a third child in 1991 at her home in Fullerton. Her boyfriend took her to the hospital, and the child was placed for adoption.

She said she concealed her following pregnancies.

“If no one confronted me with it, I didn’t have to deal with it,” she said.

In 1992, Anderson was living with friends when she gave birth to a girl, alone in her bedroom. Her roommate discovered the newborn, not yet cleaned following her birth, when Anderson left for work. Paramedics cleared the newborn’s lungs and gave her oxygen. The child was eventually adopted.

Police initially arrested Anderson for felony child endangerment in the case. But prosecutors declined to file charges because of insufficient evidence.

Then in 1995, Anderson was pregnant again. She had just lost her job and was living in her car.

Anderson said she denied she was pregnant until shortly before her delivery, when her mother confronted her and drove her to the social services department to arrange for medical care.

Still, Anderson said, she was in a state of denial. As her mother and stepfather slept upstairs one night, she delivered her last baby, by herself, over a toilet. She wrapped the child in towels and set him on her bed, court documents show.

Anderson told police she heard the newborn take a few raspy breaths immediately after the delivery, then believed he was dead. An autopsy was unable to determine how long the child had lived.

The next day, she placed the baby in a box in her car and drove around on some errands, court documents show. She returned home that evening and faced questions from her mother, who had found a bag of blood-soaked clothing in a closet. Anderson denied she had given birth, and went to bed, according to court documents.

Her mother, suspecting her daughter had been drinking, searched Anderson’s car for alcohol. She discovered the newborn’s body instead.

Several months after her arrest, Anderson’s lawyer saw a news report about the Beale case and raised the issue of whether Anderson had suffered a pregnancy-related disorder.

“Somehow in my mind, before I knew about the pregnancy depression, I knew there was some explanation, I just didn’t know what it was,” Deputy Public Defender Vicki Carter Briles said. “After I learned more about the disorder, I realized she wasn’t a bad person, she just wasn’t capable of responding appropriately.”

Briles will call on Margaret Spinelli, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, who was consulted in the Beale case and examined Anderson, concluding that she was in a disassociated state that rendered her “incapable of knowing or understanding if her act was right or wrong.”

Prosecutors argue that Anderson should have known she was putting her child at grave risk, given the earlier child abandonment, and will use the testimony of other psychiatrists to bolster their contention that Anderson was far from insane. They will argue that she is guilty of second-degree murder, based on the theory that her inaction following the delivery demonstrated “conscious disregard” for her child’s safety.

Prosecuting Dist. Atty. Paer said medical and psychiatric evidence “doesn’t even come close” to showing Anderson was insane at the time of the delivery.

Anderson faces a minimum of 15 years to life in prison if she is convicted. The verdict will be decided by Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Rackauckas Jr. rather than a jury.