I've been watching the coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial like a lot of you probably have, and I won't pretend I haven't been feeling the weight of it. I'm not going to weigh in on what happened--that's not my place. But it has put a term in front of a lot of people who'd never heard it before: postpartum psychosis. I've spent my career in maternal and child health here in Arkansas, and I can tell you what her story is doing: It's cracking open a conversation many of us have been trying to have for years.

So let me just say this plainly, because I think we bury it under statistics too often. Mental health conditions are the No. 1 cause of pregnancy-related death in this country.

It's not some rare, fringe issue. We estimate it affects one in five women during pregnancy or in that first year after birth. If you're picturing a room of five moms from your neighborhood, your church, your kid's day-care pickup line, one of them is likely dealing with maternal mental health conditions like depression or anxiety right now, probably quietly.

Here's what I wish more people understood: Becoming a mother is one of the most physically and hormonally intense things a human body goes through. Your hormones drop off a cliff. You're not sleeping. Your identity shifts overnight. Your relationships, your body change shape. And somewhere in the middle of all that, you're supposed to keep another human alive and happy. Every........

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