Danish broadcaster DR has published the account of Julie Lindbæk Hussain, who developed a postpartum psychosis after giving birth at Hvidovre Hospital and was involuntarily committed after attacking her husband. Region Hovedstaden says its staff acted correctly on the decisive points.
The case was published on September 21 by DR. Julie Lindbæk Hussain was 30 when she gave birth to her first child at Hvidovre Hospital. Her labor lasted three days, and she got no sleep during it.
According to DR, the midwife noted that she should watch for a postpartum reaction. The family was discharged the next day with a note saying she felt better after two nights of sleep. In the following days she began hearing voices she described as spirits.
She spent hours in the shower re-enacting birth movements and ate her meals in the bathroom. Her husband, Zaki Lindbæk Hussain, searched her symptoms online and found the term postpartum psychosis. He called 112 and was told hormones could affect new mothers and that it would probably pass.
Per DR, he also called the out-of-hours medical line 1813, their own doctor and Psychiatric Center Amager several times. Each time the couple was referred elsewhere. Waiting times of up to an hour made it feel unmanageable, he told DR.
Eight days after the birth, a 26 minute call on a Friday evening ended with a doctor persuading her to go to the psychiatric emergency unit. Her husband had to mislead her to get her into the car. She attacked him in the parking lot outside the unit on Amager.
A doctor noted her incoherent state but sent her home with melatonin. On the way back she threw herself out of the car and ran around the street. Her sister in law called 112, and two police officers and two paramedics restrained her on the wet asphalt before she was sedated and committed.
Region: staff acted correctly
DR presented her criticism to Region Hovedstaden, which answered in writing. The region said it regrets what she went through and acknowledged it could have met her needs better around the birth. It maintains that staff acted correctly and in line with professional standards on the decisive points.
The region added that it does not comment on individual patient cases in the media. Its emergency services unit, which runs 1813 and the 112 dispatch center, said the line’s role is to assess callers and refer them to relevant healthcare services.
She spent six weeks in psychiatric hospital without her daughter and lost her bond with the child. Three years on, that bond has been rebuilt, but she has gone from a management job in IT to disability pension and lives with PTSD and depression.
She contacted DR after a debate in the United States about a mother convicted of killing her three children. She hopes her story raises whether Danish mental health services intervene early enough in the roughly 60 postpartum psychoses recorded in Denmark each year.
As explained by Trine Munk-Olsen, professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern Denmark, in DR’s coverage, postpartum psychosis is very different from postpartum depression. DR reports the condition affects about one in 1,000 women who give birth.
