Homicide is the leading cause of death in children under four. While many believe that Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is the leading cause of infants, the truth is that infanticide by a parent is the number one killer. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a professor of Anthropology and director of the program in Medical Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley describes three types of Post Partum Depression.
The least threatening is “baby blues,” consisting of episodes of crying and mild mood swings typically addressed without medication or treatment. This condition is often resolved by participating in a support group.[1]
The onset of “Postpartum depression” occurs from a few days to a few months after childbirth. Symptoms include extreme depression, sadness, despair and hopelessness that are so severe that it impairs the mother’s ability to cope. Treatment is typically counseling and often medication The most serious mental condition is a deep depression seen within three months following childbirth. “Postpartum psychosis” presents in a mother who is experiencing a detachment from reality and often is accompanied by hallucinations and delusions. Medication and extended hospitalization is required.
The most highly publicized case of postpartum psychosis occurred in Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who methodically drown all five of her children in her bathtub. Tragically, Yates was hospitalized with postpartum depression following the birth of all of her children.
Mike Rustigan, a criminologist who teaches at San Francisco State University states, “The majority of the cases are impulse killings, like the classic shaken-baby syndrome in which a mother acts out of a spark of rage or frustration.” Rustigan states that covering the mouth of a crying child often ends with the infant being suffocated. He adds, “About 30% are premeditated murder, named Medea killings after an ancient Greek myth, a mother kills to punish someone like a cheating or abusive husband.“[2] Some mothers end the lives of their children because they are impeding their freedom or happiness. The classic case of a narcissistic mother is Susan Smith, South Carolina woman who caused her vehicle to roll into a lake with her two baby boys strapped in their car seats. Smith initially claimed that her children were car-jacked, but the truth revealed that she committed the act to free herself from the burden of raising her children.
The United Kingdom decades ago addressed the issue of post partum depression with the passage of the Infanticide Act. The Infanticide Act 1922 effectively abolished the death penalty for a woman who deliberately killed her new born child while the balance of her mind was disturbed as a result of giving birth, by providing a partial defense to murder. The sentence that applies (as in other partial defenses to murder) is the same as that for manslaughter.[3] This Act was repealed and was replaced by The Infanticide Act 1938 which extended this defense to cases where "at the time of the act or omission the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child or by reason of the effect of lactation consequent upon the birth of the child."[4] Before the partial murder defense of diminished responsibility was introduced to English law in the Homicide Act 1957, this provided an important means of selecting a more appropriate sentence for a mother found guilty of killing her infant than the mandatory life sentence or death sentence applying to murder at the time. While these are just a few examples of why mothers take the lives of their children, there are other reasons based on unique situations such as the sacrifice of weak or female children in countries that experience destitute poverty, famine or political unrest.
Tragically, more than 200 women kill their children in the United States every year.[5]
Costantinou, Marianne. "Why Mothers Kill Their Kids." The San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner 26 March 1998: A.
Harkness, Sara. "The Cultural Mediation of Postpartum Depression." Medical Anthology Quarterly (1987): 194-209.
Kingdom, The Parliament of the United. "Infanticide Bill." millbanksystems.com. 29 September 2010 <http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1938/mar/22/infanticide-bill-hl (Kingdom)>.
Women who have killed their own children:
· Patricia Blackmon was 29 years old when she killed her 2-year-old adopted daughter in Dothan, AL in May 1999.
· Debra Jean Milke was 25 when she killed her 4-year-old son in Arizona in 1989.
· Dora Luz Durenrostro killed her two daughters, age 4 and 9, and her son, age 8, when she was 34 years old in San Jacinto, California in 1994.
· Caro Socorro was 42 years old when she killed her three sons, ages 5, 8 and 11, in Santa Rosa Valley, California in 1999.
· Susan Eubanks murdered her four sons, ages 4, 6, 7 and 14, in San Marcos, California, in 1996 when she was 33.
· Caroline Young was 49 in Haywood, California when she killed her 4-year-old granddaughter and 6-year-old grandson.
· Robin Lee Row was 35 years old when she killed her husband, her 10-year-old son and her 8-year-old daughter in Boise, Idaho in 1992.
· Michelle Sue Tharp was 29 years old in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania when she killed her 7-year-old daughter.
· Frances Elaine Newton was 21 when she murdered her husband, 7-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter in Houston, Texas. Update: Frances Elaine Newton was executed on September 14, 2005.
· Darlie Lynn Routier was 26 in Rowlett, Texas when she was convicted of killing her 5-year-old son.
· Teresa Michelle Lewis killed her 51-year-old husband and 26-year-old step son in Keeling, Virginia when she was 33 years old.
· Kenisha Berry at age 20, covered her 4-day-old son with duct tape resulting in his death.
