Gender-Specific Care for Women in Psychiatric Units.

Structural inequalities in health care often result in female patients' not receiving care tailored to their needs. Women with mental illness in the peripartum period are no exception. Caan and colleagues delve into the benefits of breastfeeding in psychiatric units, highlighting the scarcity of appropriate resources due to the lack of mother-baby units in the United States. They also offer practical solutions and a legal analysis to address this problem. This commentary aims to broaden the scope of the article and emphasize how psychiatric care in the United States needs to address much more than lactation to provide gender-specific care. Elements of care to consider include types of treatment modalities offered, perinatal psychotropic choices, access to co-hospitalization options, lactation resources, and posthospitalization support. Pursuing a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach will allow psychiatric facilities in the United States to provide gender-appropriate care that will not only benefit women with mental health needs in the peripartum period, but also their infants and families as a whole.

Revisiting the False Confession Problem.

Despite the existence of important safeguards in our criminal legal system, innocent suspects often succumb to forceful and deceptive interrogation techniques. Among those over-represented members of the false confessor population are minors, people with cognitive and intellectual disabilities, and those with psychiatric disorders. Some of the confessions made by these at-risk populations can hardly be considered voluntary or reliable, but they are generally admitted at trial, regardless of their prejudicial effect. Forensic psychiatrists should become more involved in the overall process of evaluating confessions, not only testifying in courts, but also assisting policymakers in reforming the interrogation process and influencing the legal process. Thus, forensic psychiatrists may give their expert opinion by providing proper training to police interrogators and examining videotaped interrogations. In addition, forensic experts can be instrumental in contributing to three legal solutions that we propose to the false confession problem: a constitutional approach, an evidence law approach, and a jury instruction approach. Each of these approaches requires forensic psychiatrists to help judges and jurors understand the coercive nature of the interrogation process and its effect on suspects' behavior.