(Press-News.org) Although rare, the true incidence of neonaticides - the unlawful killing of a baby within the first 24 hours of its life - is more than five times as common as official estimates suggest, suggests research published online in the Fetal and Neonatal edition of the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Low maternal self esteem and emotional immaturity, rather than obvious mental illness or social disadvantage, are key drivers, the research indicates.
The researchers reviewed the case records of 26 courts in three regions of France, involving the death of a child within the first day of life between 1996 and 2000, and which came to trial between 1996 and 2007. The analysis included the psychiatric assessment of the mothers.
Among 80 cases of intentional violent deaths during this period, a third (27 cases) were unlawful killings during the first day of life. The authors reviewed the records of all cases and analysed the characteristics of the 17 cases where the mother had been identified.
There was a "sizeable underestimate" in official statistics of neonaticides. The official statistics put the figure of the unlawful killing of newborns at 0.39 per 100,000 births for the same regions over the same period.
But the court data point to 2.1 per 100,000, equal to a rate that is actually five times higher.
When the authors analysed the mothers' profiles, they found that the perception of a young poor, unemployed, single woman as the culprit was not borne out by the evidence.
The judicial data showed that the average age of women who unlawfully killed their babies was 26. One in three had at least three children already. Two thirds had not used contraception while the rest used it irregularly for this particular pregnancy.
More than half lived with the dead child's father and two thirds were employed in jobs similar to those of women in the general population.
None of the women seemed to be obviously mentally ill, nor had there been any clear denial of the pregnancy - factors often said to be associated with these cases. No history of the mother having been abused as a child had been recorded either.
But all the pregnancies had been concealed from family and friends. No deliveries took place in medical facilities, and all but three of the 17 women gave birth secretly and alone. Almost half the women were depressed.
What distinguished them were their low levels of self esteem, emotional immaturity, dependency on others, and fear of being abandoned by them.
"Feeling very much alone, and for nearly half of them, depressed, [these women] probably did not have complete control over their lives or their sexuality," say the authors. "Neonaticide thus appears as a solution when an unwanted pregnancy risks creating a family scandal, or the loss of one's partner or a satisfying lifestyle," they continue.
"Our findings suggest that preventive action, targeting only young, poor, unemployed and single women, or women in pregnancy denial, may not be appropriate," they add.
INFORMATION: END
What makes cancer cells so dangerous is that they grow in an unregulated way and proliferate much faster than other cells. The proteasome, a large protein complex, plays a key role in this process: By breaking down used proteins for recycling, it clears the way for the next cycle. New hope was spawned several years ago with the discovery that inhibiting proteasomes can be used as a means to put the brakes on cell growth. In the mean time, the first drug using this approach, Bortezomib, generates revenues in excess of one billion U.S. dollars per year. However, it also inhibits ...
The researchers decided to embark on this study in order to find out which mechanisms are used by plants when they extract water from very dry or somewhat inhospitable land. "In the case of mangrove swamps, for example, the plants are able to extract freshwater from a saltwater environment, despite the fact that the osmotic pressure should make quite the opposite happen", explains Professor José Luis Pérez Díaz, who studies this type of relatively unknown phenomenon as part of a new line of research that the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC3M has begun.
The ...
Tel Aviv ― Will Rona and Sol kiss and seal their fate as a couple forever, or will Sol answer the ringing phone and change the course of history? A new movie format developed by Tel Aviv University lets the viewer decide.
Utilizing complicated video coding procedures, the new format provides smooth interaction and transition between scenes as audience members watch ― and determine the plot of ― Turbulence, created by Prof. Nitzan Ben Shaul of Tel Aviv University's Department of Film and Television. Made with his unique scene-sequencing technique, Turbulence ...
Storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide underground in an effort to combat global warming may not be easy to do because of the potential for triggering small- to moderate-sized earthquakes, according to Stanford geophysicist Mark Zoback.
While those earthquakes are unlikely to be big enough to hurt people or property, they could still cause serious problems for the reservoirs containing the gas.
"It is not the shaking an earthquake causes at the surface that creates the hazard in this instance, it is what it does at depth," Zoback said. "It may not take a very big ...
The National Centre for Social Research today released its latest British Social Attitudes report, its landmark study of the public's attitudes and values, published annually for almost thirty years.
This year's report delivers the public's verdict after thirteen years of Labour rule. It shows a nation at a political crossroads. On the one hand attitudes on welfare have hardened to the right. On the other, many think there were marked improvements in health and education under Labour, creating potential resistance to reform or cuts in these areas.
A shift to the right ...
INDIANAPOLIS – Along with integrity and compassion, respect for patients, colleagues and other team members is an essential attribute of medical professionalism. A new study examines how medical students learn respectful or disrespectful professional behavior.
"Exploring the Meaning of Respect in Medical Student Education: An Analysis of Student Narratives" appears in the December 2010 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. From the observations and conclusions of third-year medical students, the article provides insight into how future physicians acquire ...
Researchers from the Peninsula Technology Assessment Group (PenTAG) at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry have contributed to new National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance on preventing unintentional injury to the under-15s.
The public health guidance is based on reviews of research evidence produced by the team at PenTAG. There are three linked pieces of guidance on: home safety assessments and safety equipment; road design and modification; and broader strategies to prevent unintentional injuries to among children and young people ...
You can touch a functioning light bulb and know right away that it's hot. Ouch! But you can't touch a single molecule and get the same feedback.
Rice University researchers say they have the next best thing -- a way to determine the temperature of a molecule or flowing electrons by using Raman spectroscopy combined with an optical antenna.
A new paper from the lab of Douglas Natelson, a Rice professor of physics and astronomy, details a technique that measures the temperature of molecules set between two gold nanowires and heated either by current applied to the wires ...
For some years now, consumers have been making increasing use of wood as a fuel – and not only on account of the rising cost of heating oil and natural gas. "Comfort fireplaces" have become all the rage because open fires, tiled and wood-burning stoves give a room a snug and cozy feel. But using wood for heating has one distinct disadvantage. When pellets, logs or briquettes are burnt, fine dust particles that are hazardous to health are released into the atmosphere. These particles are known to cause coughs, place stress on the cardiovascular system, and are thought to ...
Every 15 months or so, an unfelt earthquake occurs in western Washington and travels northward to Canada's Vancouver Island. The episode typically releases as much energy as a magnitude 6.5 earthquake, but it does so gradually over a month.
New technology is letting University of Washington researchers get a much better picture of how these episodic tremor events relate to potentially catastrophic earthquakes, perhaps as powerful as magnitude 9, that occur every 300 to 500 years in the Cascadia subduction zone in western Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.
"Depending ...
