Andrea Yates R.N.

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Did you know that Andrea Yates, the woman who is now being re-tried for drowning her 5 children in Texas was a nurse? I just thought it was interesting.

Specializes in EC, IMU, LTAC.
Pardon me if I seem insensitive to her for the post partum defense(which I can understand would be very difficult to handle), but I personally think they need lock her up and throw away the key. There's NO excuse for killing anyone, especially your own 5 children. NONE.

This kind of reminds me of how police will arrest the prostitute but not the john.

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Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.

It looks like some posters do not understand what psychosis is. I'd research the dx.

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Pardon me if I seem insensitive to her for the post partum defense(which I can understand would be very difficult to handle), but I personally think they need lock her up and throw away the key. There's NO excuse for killing anyone, especially your own 5 children. NONE.

This is who was watching her children:

"she began to self mutilate and refused to feed her children because she felt they were eating too much. She thought there were video cameras in the ceilings and said that the characters on television were talking to her and the children. She told Rusty (her husband) about the hallucinations but neither of them told the psychiatrist..."

She was very sick, she was not receiving the medical care or medications she required. Again, the above is not post partum DEPRESSION, this is post partum PSYCHOSIS. Completely and totally different diagnosis.

On a sidenote, a better question would be: why did her husband allow her to continue to care for their children when she confided this information to him?

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Specializes in Cardiothoracic Transplant Telemetry.
andrea yates suffered from post-partum psychosis not post-partum depression. the two are not the same. thousands of mothers every year suffer from post-partum depression and do not kill their children. there are many effective treatments including anti-depressants (which often can be taken for short periods of time per md directions) which can alleviate post-partum depression.

the fact that ms. yates had been taking haldol is a red flag indicating a much more serious problem. her doctor failed her miserably and imo should be sued for malpractice for suggesting that she could 'will' herself out of this serious mental illness.

btw, why are we surprised that ms. yates was a nurse? i know plenty of nurses that have just about every mental health diagnosis. it is not a diagnosis solely for the uneducated 'trailer trash' masses. having a mental health diagnosis doesn't preclude someone from being a healthy, happy and productive member of society.

thank you soooo much for your post. while this case was a clear tragedy, especially for the children, there were so many warning signs, and unfortunately no one, not even those children's father, stood between her and her actions. andrea had been hospitalized in the past, was clearly delusional at the time, and was off of her very serious psychiatric medications. she had attempted suicide in the past. people ask why she continued having children if they just made her crazy? because she was crazy. rusty on the other hand is seen as the poor father. he did not have the excuse of psychosis when he chose to continue to conceive children with this woman, refuse to allow her to have anyone in to help her, or to help her around the house because he believes in 'traditional' gender roles. instead he continued to have as many 'blessings' as the lord would send them, regardless of the effect those 'blessings' had on his wife. now andrea, who is not asking to be released by the way, goes through another trial, and rusty got married last weekend in the same church that hosted his children's funerals. she is insane, she needs longterm help, she has to deal with the fact that she is responsible for her children's deaths for the rest of her life, but apparently rusty shares none of the culpability.

this is a tragedy for everyone involved.

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Specializes in Acute Med, Pediatric Hematology-Oncology.
This is who was watching her children:

"she began to self mutilate and refused to feed her children because she felt they were eating too much. She thought there were video cameras in the ceilings and said that the characters on television were talking to her and the children. She told Rusty (her husband) about the hallucinations but neither of them told the psychiatrist..."

She was very sick, she was not receiving the medical care or medications she required. Again, the above is not post partum DEPRESSION, this is post partum PSYCHOSIS. Completely and totally different diagnosis.

On a sidenote, a better question would be: why did her husband allow her to continue to care for their children when she confided this information to him?

i would even venture to say that if she was taking anti-psychotics before her pregnancy, then this was a long-term ongoing psychiatric problem and not anything postpartum. it might have just been exacerbated by postpartum depression.

however, having said that....i still find what she did reprehensible and she needs to be held fully responsible. i worked on a psych floor. there were patients with severe issues who felt like harming people. they came in and got help because they recognized that there was an issue. they didnt end up killing anyone.

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One thing I really REALLY hate, somethin i cant stomach, are parents killing their innocent and powerless children. I AGREE WITH DEATH PENALTY. These kind of people dont belong in a civilized society. I hope we can send these people as a bait in IRAQ instead of sending our troops.

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i worked on a psych floor. there were patients with severe issues who felt like harming people. they came in and got help because they recognized that there was an issue. they didnt end up killing anyone.

They were fortunate to have enough of their faculties to realize that there was a problem and to come in to get help. Or, perhaps, their family recognized the problem and had them emergency-detained. Unfortunately, this woman had no safety nets. Everyone around her, INCLUDING HER ATTENDING PSYCHIATRIST, failed her.

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Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.
One thing I really REALLY hate, somethin i cant stomach, are parents killing their innocent and powerless children. I AGREE WITH DEATH PENALTY. These kind of people dont belong in a civilized society. I hope we can send these people as a bait in IRAQ instead of sending our troops.

This is beyond ugly.

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One thing I really REALLY hate, somethin i cant stomach, are parents killing their innocent and powerless children. I AGREE WITH DEATH PENALTY. These kind of people dont belong in a civilized society. I hope we can send these people as a bait in IRAQ instead of sending our troops.

I don't want innocent people murdered either. But I also have problems with the lack of motivation to be educated in the health profession regarding mental illness. Mental illness is seen by most as a dirty family secret, and mental health patients are among the most despised patients in any hospital. I find it morally reprehensible how these patients are treated by those that should know better.

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Specializes in Cardiothoracic Transplant Telemetry.
one thing i really really hate, somethin i cant stomach, are parents killing their innocent and powerless children. i agree with death penalty. these kind of people dont belong in a civilized society. i hope we can send these people as a bait in iraq instead of sending our troops.

feel a little strongly, doya? i understand the instinctive drive to protect the innocent, but my ire is reserved for parents who leave their children in the car during 100+ days because it is too much trouble to drag them into the grocery store, mall, or because their babysitter cancelled and they have to go to work. for a situation that is so clearly documented over the course of years, like andrea yates, all i can feel is pity for the children and that she did not get the help that she needed in time. this was not a defense that was thought up by a defense attorney. this is a documented mental illness that had been in existence for years before the tragedy occurred.

cumeberland40, i do not necessarily mean to single you out, your post just set me back a bit when i read it. i can see emotions are running high with this thread.

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Personally, I feel very sorry for Andrea Yates. I feel she must have been extremely ill. Her previous behaviour should have driven her "religiuous" family and church to protect her kids and her. What a support system. The husband qualifies as shark bait, IMHO. Who the he!! would marry an idiot like that? His new wife is probably a nurse too. Sometimes, we think we can save anyone.

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:angryfire :angryfire :angryfire Not to sound like a harsh person but, to me I believe she knew exactly what she was doing....Even when she chased her 7 year old son around the house just to get to him and then to drown him, please give me a break with that so call depression???? Don't get me wrong I know that some womens at sometime after given birth to a baby do go through it, but still she should have better sense to stop having kid if she knew that by having this kids would only get her depress after them so o to me the only ones who should have pitty is her kids as for her she is so luck I'm not the judge because she wouldn't be seeing day light until her last day on this earth the only light that she would have seen is the partial light on judgment day which I would like to know what answer is she going to give when the lord ask her "Why did you take the life's of the precise gifts that I have given you"??? then what is she going to say I'm sorry my lord but I was depress???? give me a break what about the way those kids had to live their last day on this earth hmmmmmmm do they get I'm sorry??? No, so to me I wont and can forgive her even though if it state in the Bible "Forgive other as you would want other to forgive you" I forgive right after I place her head under the bath tube water so that she could know exactly how her kids felt when she was drowning each one of them....:angryfire :angryfire :angryfire :angryfire so to me she deserves what ever is coming to her including the death penalty....everytime I think of what she did to her kids it just reminds me of a old friend of my mother who through her newborn from the livingroom to the kitchen like a football and killed her and what card did she played when it was time to face her the judge "You honor I was depress" I didn't know what I was doing but I do remeber smoking some marajuaan at the time....and they gave her 20 years in jail she wasn't high then I bet when that sentence came down on her....:angryfire :angryfire :angryfire :angryfire

Oh, come on...this woman is clearly stone crazy. No amount of hell on earth and fire and brimstone will change any of that.

An unrational person cannot think rationally. She got to the point she wasn't even capable of wiping her own rear end. If anyone is to blame it is the husband/family who could see what was going on and put an end to it. But the husband, to me, seems like some kind of self-absorbed idiot.

It is an incredibly sad story all the way around. There is no happy ending to any of this for anyone.

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