Monstrous Mothering: Understanding The Causes Of And Responses To Infanticide

Arlie Loughnan and Mike O’Connor*

The deliberate killing of a child by its mother is abhorrent and is associated in the minds of many with mental illness and in particular with postnatal depression. However, at least 50% of perpetrators are neither “mad” nor “bad”, and mothers who kill children are not “unhinged” by pregnancy or childbirth. We propose a different explanation: “blind rage” or “overwhelmed syndrome”, whereby parents, stressed to breaking point by sleep deprivation or incessant baby crying, respond by lethally harming their child contrary to previous behaviour. The roots of this blind rage may be found in psychosocial disturbances, including the mother’s own unsatisfactory experience of parenting which has caused attachment disorders. The legal framework guiding decisions to prosecute and structuring sentencing decision-making following conviction should acknowledge the exceptional stress experienced by such mothers postnatally. Health professionals including midwives and obstetricians should increase their vigilance and arrange referrals for mothers at risk of causing harm or committing infanticide.

Keywords:infanticide; filicide; postnatal depression; psychotic illness; sentencing.

“Anger at a child. How shall I learn to absorb the violence and make explicit only the caring?”
Adrienne Rich1 (1929–2012).

INTRODUCTION
The crime of infanticide by a biological mother is difficult to understand. In law, infanticide typically requires that the biological mother kill the child within 12 months of birth and that at the time of the defendant’s act or omission, the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth or lactating. Under s 22A of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) the offence carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. New South Wales is one of a number of States around the common law world to provide for a stand-alone offence of infanticide, that also functions as a partial defence to a charge of murder.

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