Neonaticide

Neonaticide usually refers to the killing of a child during the first 24 hours of life in medical publications.^[1] However, Romania defines that infanticide can only occur in the first 24 hours after birth.^[2] "A neonaticide" may refer to anyone who practice or who have practiced this.

every year, hundreds of women commit neonaticide: they kill their newborns or let them die. Most neonaticides remain undiscovered, but every once in a while a janitor follows a trail of blood to a tiny body in a trash bin, or a woman faints and doctors find the remains of a placenta inside her.

—Steven Pinker, New York Times, 1997^[3]

Parental infanticide are more commonly done by fathers than mothers^[4] but vice versa for neonaticide.^[5]

Current law

Romania

The Penal Code of Romania resolved a new Penal Code, scheduled to come into force in 2014, which states that infanticide can only occur in the first 24 hours after birth.^[2]

History

An early reference to filicide (the killing of a child by a parent) is in Greek mythology, In his play, Medea, Euripides portrayed Medea as having killed her two sons after Jason abandoned her for the daughter of the King of Corinth^[6] giving us what has been termed the Medea Complex.^[7] Under the Roman Law, patria potestas, the right of a father to kill his own children was protected.^[8][9] It was not until the 4th century that the Roman state, influenced by Christianity, began to regard filicide as a crime. Still, mothers who killed their infants or newborns received lesser sentences under both the laws of the church and the state.^[10] The church consistently dealt more leniently with those mothers whose children died by "overlying," an accidental death by smothering when a sleeping parent rolled over on the infant. The opinions of the church in these deaths reflects an awareness of one of society's first attempts to understand the severe problem of overpopulation and overcrowding.^[11] England has traditionally viewed infanticide as a "special crime," passing its first Infanticide Act in 1623 under the Stuarts and more recently in the Infanticide Acts of 1922 and 1938.^[12][13] Most recently England passed the Infanticide Act of 1978 which allows a lesser sentence for attempted infanticide.^[14] Unlike England and other European countries, the United States has not adopted special statutes to deal with infanticide or neonaticide. Nonetheless, juries and judges, as reflected in their verdicts and sentences, have consistently considered the difficulties and stresses of a mother during the post-partum period.^[15]

Cultural aspects

The Chinese, as late as the 20th century, killed newborn daughters because they were unable to transmit the family name. Additionally, daughters were viewed as weaker and not as useful in time of war or for agricultural work. In the past, Inuit killed infants with known congenital anomalies and often one of a set of twins.^[16] Similarly, Mohave Indians had killed all children of racially mixed birth at birth.^[17] In their 1981 paper, Sakuta and Saito^[18] reviewed infanticide in Japan and describe the two distinct types of infanticide commonly seen. The Mabiki type corresponds to the ancient means of "thinning out" or population control; the Anomie type, a product of modern society, corresponds to the "unwanted child."

Neonaticide statistics

The United States ranks first in rates of homicide of children under the age of four years. Forty-five percent (45%) of all child murders occur in the first 24 hours of life, and thus can be classified as neonaticide.^[19] For the period 1982-1987, approximately 1.1% of all homicides have been of children under one year of age. Eight to nine percent (8%–9%) of all murders are of persons under 18 years of age. Of these, almost twice as many sons as compared to daughters are victims.^[20] In half of the cases death occurs literally "at the hands of" the parent. Weapons are almost never used in neonaticide. Drowning, strangulation, head trauma, suffocation, and exposure (to the elements) are all common methods.^[20]

Maternal neonaticide

90% of neonaticidal mothers are 25 years of age or younger. Less than 20% are married. Less than 30% are seen as psychotic or depressed^[20][21][22] They have typically denied and/or concealed the pregnancy since conception.

See also

• Child euthanasia
• Unintended pregnancy
• Psychiatric disorders of childbirth
• Safe-haven law
• Baby hatch

Literacy Works of Fiction

• [The Medea Complex, by Rachel Florence Roberts]

References

External links

• [1]
• Families, Murder and Insanity, Dr. Neil S. Kaye
• Baby Blue Foundation
• BBC News - France 'underestimates true scale of neonaticide'
• Netherlands Institute for the Documentation of Anonymous Abandonment (NIDAA) about foundlings, baby death, sismotherhood and illegal admission