Margaret Spinelli, MD
Margaret Spinelli MD is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Distinguished Lifetime Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. She is the founder of the Women’s Mental Health Program at Columbia University Medical College. Dr. Spinelli practiced as a registered nurse for 15 years before attending medical school and residency at Cornell University Medical College. During her research fellowship at Columbia University Medical College, she adapted and manualized Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Pregnant Depressed Women.
Dr. Spinelli is a one of the pioneers and founders of perinatal and reproductive psychiatry in the United States.
The highlight of her training was her clerkship on the Mother Baby Unit at the Maudsley and Royal Bethlem Hospital in London under the mentorship of Professor Channi Kumar.
Since 1994, she has evaluated and testified for more >25 women with mental illness who have killed their infants. To educate the field of psychiatry, she published the first psychiatric text on infanticide Psychosocial and Legal Perspectives on Mothers who Kill for which she received the Manfred S. Guttmacher award for an outstanding literary contribution to psychiatry and the forensic sciences. She was awarded the Alexandra Symonds Award for her achievements in women’s mental health in the fields of clinical services, research, and education.
Dr. Spinelli’s clinical, teaching, research activities and publications have focused on psychiatric disorders during pregnancy and the postpartum periods.
