Massachusetts plans to invest $2 million to expand its voluntary Welcome Family programme, which provides nurse home visits to new parents after childbirth. The initiative aims to improve maternal health and identify families needing additional medical, practical or mental-health support, but has prompted debate about privacy, taxpayer-funded services and the government’s role in family healthcare.

The expansion includes training for healthcare providers to recognise postpartum mental-health conditions, alongside an extra $250,000 for a specialist support programme assisting clinicians. The announcement follows heightened attention to postpartum illness during the mistrial of Lindsay Clancy, who was accused of killing her three children and whose defence cited severe postpartum mental illness; online reactions ranged from describing the visits as helpful for vulnerable families to calling them government overreach.