Infanticide is the purposeful murder of infants. In most cases, the infant is killed by a parent, usually the mother. Perpetrators of infant maltreatment have been identified throughout history and in virtually every society. Infanticide may take the form of violent trauma, such as strangulation or battering, or the child may be left to die of starvation or hypothermia (this form of abandonment is also known as exposure). In some cases, babies have been sacrificed as part of a religious ritual.

Of all the children who die from abuse and/or neglect in the United States, infants represent the largest percentage of fatalities: about 44% of all child maltreatment fatalities in the United States in 2003 occurred to babies younger than one year, according to the Administration on Children, Youth and Families in their annual report. Infants who die from neglect are more likely than children in other age groups to die from starvation or dehydration.

Worldwide, infants and young children have the greatest risk of suffering from fatal abuse, according to the World Report on Violence and Health, published by the World Health Organization in 2002. The risk for death from abuse is greater than double among infants and young children compared to the risk of death among children who are five to 14 years old.

Historical Background of Infanticide

History is replete with accounts of infanticide. Biblical accounts of the mass murder of infants include the pharaoh's order that all male children be drowned and King Herod's attempt to slaughter all Jewish males under the age of two. Ancient Roman law permitted the destruction of unwanted infants. Aristotle advocated infanticide as a way of dealing with disabled or deformed infants.

Some societies did not consider an infant to be a person until the child was ritually confirmed. In ancient Rome, a newborn was placed on the floor in front of the mother's husband. If he picked the child up, it was considered his offspring; if not, the child was often killed. The Romans viewed this as a way of protecting the purity of their race. Vikings presented the male infant with a spear. If the infant grasped the spear, he was allowed to live. Viking brothers were also obligated to kill their sister's infant if she died during childbirth.

Medieval English society protected the child's right to live only after it had consumed earthly nourishment. Many early Christians did not consider a child fully human until the infant was baptized, and children who died before baptism occurred were not allowed to be buried in sanctified ground. Excluded from church cemeteries, these children were given the same burial afforded a domestic animal.

In the Middle Ages, a common method of infanticide was overlaying, in which the mother lay on top of the infant until it smothered to death. However, overlaying was considered a sin by the priests of the time.

Until the 19th century, the Indian practice of casting female infants into the Ganges River was widespread. Polynesians expected mothers of lower social status to destroy all newborns immediately following birth, but babies born to upper-class mothers were protected from slaughter. A particularly brutal form of infanticide is said to have been practiced in rural Ireland in the 20th century. So-called changeling babies, or infants born with congenital anomalies or who were simply unattractive (and thought to be bewitched), were roasted alive over an open fire.

Though prevalent, infanticide was by no means always condoned. In 18th-century Prussia, infant murderers were punished by sacking. Sewn into a cloth sack and weighted with heavy rocks and/or with a snake, a dog and a cock, perpetrators were thrown into a river to drown. Sacking was forbidden by Frederick the Great, who thought decapitation was a more appropriate punishment. Other punishments for those who committed infanticide included being burned at the stake or being impaled.

In 1871, the infant death toll at baby farms, where infants were given into the care of others, usually by unwed mothers, had reached such proportions that the British House of Commons appointed a special committee to investigate the problem. As a result of the inquiry, the Infant Life Protection Act was passed. For the first time, minimum standards for child care were established in Britain.

In some civilizations, infants were placed in building foundations or in dikes to ensure the structure's strength. Brazilian tribes have been reported, as recently as 1977, as casting children from a high ledge into the ocean. The stated purpose of this ritual slaying was to ensure a bountiful harvest.

Infanticide has also long been practiced as a means of population control. Australian aboriginal mothers have been reported to kill a child when there was insufficient food or water to sustain the family. This phenomenon is not limited to historical or primitive cultures. Infanticides committed by unwed mothers have been documented in Japan, the United States and other industrialized countries.

Current Worldwide Problems with Infanticide

According to the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, in considering regions that identify female infanticide as a form of maltreatment, 100% of individuals in the Americas (North and South) as well as Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) regard infanticide in this manner. Ninety-five percent of Europeans also share this view. Other regions, however, have a significantly different view. For example, 67% of those surveyed in Asia view female infanticide as child abuse or neglect, as do 82% of those surveyed in Africa. In general, 90% of developed countries regard female infanticide as a problem, as do 79% of developing (poor) countries.

Research Studies

In a study reported in a 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, of 34 newborns know to have been discarded or killed by a parent older than 16 years in North Carolina, the researchers estimated that at least two children per 100,000 newborns were either killed or left to die, in most cases, by their mothers (29 out of 34 cases).

Said the researchers, "The risk of homicide on the first day of life (neonatacide) is 10 times greater than the rate during any other time of life." The researchers found that there were more male victims (59%) than female victims. Half the mothers were age 20 and younger. About 21% of the mothers who committed infanticide were married women. About 24% of the mothers had received prenatal care. The most common causes of death among the infants were either asphyxiation/strangulation (41%) or drowning (27%).

Based on a study published in 1998 in the New England Journal of Medicine, about 50% of infanticides occur by the time the baby is four months old, and two-thirds have occurred by the sixth month of the infant's life. The researchers investigated 2,776 homicides among children in the first year of life over the period 1983-91. One-third of the babies were killed as a result of battering or another form of maltreatment, such as suffocation or strangulation, drowning, the use of firearms, criminal neglect, arson and cuts and stabbing.

The researchers identified some key risk factors associated with infant homicides. These include the following:

-           A second or subsequent infant born to a mother less than 19 years of age

-           Maternal age of less than 17 years

-           No prenatal care received by the mother

-           Postpartum Psychosis

Some experts believe that maternal infanticide often occurs as a result of mental illness. According to Margaret Spinelli, in a 2004 article in the American Journal of Psychiatry, there are five different categories of maternal infanticide.

The first category includes infant homicides committed by young women who do not want to have the baby and who have kept the pregnancy secret from those around them. The baby is born with the mother receiving no assistance. The mothers may report experiencing a temporary psychotic dissociation, saying that it was as if they were watching themselves delivering the child, while experiencing no pain. The baby is either murdered or dies without receiving resuscitation.

The second category includes women who perform the murder with an abusive male partner. The third category is that of infants who die from neglect because the mother is preoccupied with other tasks. The fourth category is that of mothers who are attempting to discipline their babies, and the child dies as a result. The fifth and last category is that of purposeful homicide. This may occur (although it need not) as a result of the mother's mental illness, such as postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis or schizophrenia.

The most commonly cited case of postpartum psychosis is that of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children, ages seven, five, three, two and six months, in 2001 in a bathtub at her home in Houston, Texas. Yates was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for the homicides, but her conviction was overturned in 2005. After a second trial in July 2006, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state mental hospital.

Noted Spinelli, "Mrs. Yates had a history of psychiatric illness and a first reported psychotic episode after Noah's birth in 1994. At that time she told no one because she feared Satan would hear and harm her children. Two suicide attempts after her fourth pregnancy were driven by attempts to resist satanic voices commanding her to kill her infant."

Spinelli said that there are lessons and risk factors to be learned from the Yates case. Some of these which should be considered are

-           A history of psychiatric illness in the mother

-           The mother's childbearing history (Yates was either pregnant or breastfeeding from 1994 to 2001)

-           A family history of psychiatric illness

-           Past psychiatric interventions (Yates was hospitalized in a psychiatric facility in 1999. A social worker filed a report with protective services, but no investigation occurred.)

-           Inadequate education about mental illness (Mr. Yates stated that he believed Mrs. Yates would spring back from her mental illness.)

-           Inadequate education about mental illness among medical professionals (Many health-care professionals do not realize that postpartum psychosis is a medical emergency; psychiatrists, nurses, social workers and other professionals missed the signs among Mrs. Yates.)

-           Poor psychiatric management of postpartum psychosis (Mrs. Yates's psychiatrist discontinued her antipsychotic medication two weeks before the tragedy, for unknown reasons.)

References:

1)         Administration on Children, Youth and Families. Child Maltreatment 2003. Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C., 2005.

2)         Herman-Giddens, Marcia E. "Newborns Killed or Left to Die by a Parent." Journal of the American Medical Association 289, no. 11 (March 19, 2003): 1,425-1,429.

3)         International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. World Perspectives on Child Abuse. 6th ed. Carol Stream, Ill.: International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, 2004.

4)         Krug, E. G., et al, eds. World Report on Violence and Health. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2002.

5)         Overpeck, Mary D., et al. "Risk Factors for Infant Homicide in the United States." New England Journal of Medicine 339, no. 17 (1998): 1,211-1,216.

6)         Radbill, S. "A History of Child Abuse and Infanticide?" In Ray Heifer and C. Henry Kempe, eds. The Battered Child. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 3-20.

7)         Spinelli, Margaret G., M.D. "Maternal Infanticide Associated with Mental Illness: Prevention and the Promise of Saved Lives." American Journal of Psychiatry 161, no. 9 (September 2004): 1,548-1,557.

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