Mom found dead with baby in NJ pond had postpartum depression, family says

The mother of an Edison woman who was found dead with her infant son in a Middlesex County pond last week says she suffered from postpartum depression.

The grieving grandmother is raising funds for their funeral services.

Last Tuesday morning, Piscataway police had recovered the bodies of 30-year-old Tamequa Robinson and 9-month-old Noah Robinson from a car floating in New Market Pond along Stelton Road.

As of Monday, autopsies were pending and cause of death was not confirmed, according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office.

A GoFundMe campaign organized by Lillian Robinson has been receiving donations, as the mourning grandmother said she believed her daughter's mental health had been a factor.

"This world became [too] much for my daughter to handle and she took her life along with my grand baby. My heart aches as I now know the tragic results of battling bipolarness and postpartum depression," Robinson wrote in the description of the online fundraiser.

Depression and anxiety during or after pregnancy affect about one in every seven mothers, according to the American Psychiatric Association, which also says "peripartum depression is a serious, but treatable medical illness involving feelings of extreme sadness, indifference and/or anxiety, as well as changes in energy, sleep, and appetite."

New Jersey professionals in the field have recently speculated if that rate has doubled or tripled over the past several months, during the COVID pandemic.