The term “Munchausen syndrome by proxy” (MSBP) was coined around twenty years ago, and hundreds of reports have appeared since then. In most cases, a mother either claims that her child is sick, or she goes even further to actually make the child sick. This “devoted” parent then continually presents the child for medical treatment, all the while denying any knowledge of the origin of the problem–namely, herself. As a result, MSBP victims may undergo extraordinary numbers of lab tests, medication trials, and even surgical procedures that aren’t really needed. Some children have scarcely experienced a day of their young lives without being brought to the doctor’s office or confined to the hospital. In the vast majority of cases, the perpetrator is the mother and the victim an infant or toddler.
The web of deceit the caregiver spins can be buttressed by medical signs and symptoms that mislead the most skillful of physicians. Their acting skills can match those of a veteran performer. For instance, the MSBP perpetrator might induce “apnea” (a cessation of breathing) by suffocating her child to the point of unconsciousness, then frantically display the limp child to the hospital or clinic staff as the tears roll down her cheeks. She may secretly place a drop of blood in the child’s urine specimen, then appear aghast at lab results that alarm the unsuspecting physicians and nurses. Behind closed doors, she may scrub the child’s skin with oven cleaner to cause a baffling blistering rash that lasts for months. Since it may take many years of illness for doctors finally to arrive at the truth, it should not be surprising that this form of child abuse has a mortality rate of nine percent
Do you think MSBP is a legal defense for a mother who is being charged with child abuse or worse, murder? Do you think having MSBP should be treated as commonly as depression?
I can’t think of the woman’s name off hand but she was recently in the news for drowning her 5 children in the tub. She is claimed to have MSBP. Her defense wants her to get off with being placed in a mental faciilty for a couple of years for treatment instead of going to prison for 25-life. Is this fair?
IANAL, but I would think that all the prosecutor has to prove to defeat an insanity plea is “Did they know it was wrong”. MSBP shows many of the earmarks of a diagnosable mental illness, but inability to know what they are doing is wrong doesn’t appear to be one of the symptoms.
I’m not sure what ‘treated as commonly as depression’ means. Do you mean we should treat people with MSBP with medication and therapy as we do with those who have clinical depression?
Based on what I read from the website from which most of your OP is based, I’d say these women need help. From what I understand, there is no effective treatment for Munchausen Syndrome or Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. To make matters worse, the habit of using different doctors each time makes it difficult for medical professionals to detect a care-giver may have MSBP.
That was my understanding to, that there wsn’t any viable help available. How can being sent to a mental facilty for a few years “cure the illness” or “get it under control” and make this person available to society again?
In my opinion she should go to jail
JuanitaTech suggests that we should help those in jail.
My question is how? Drugs? Therapy? At who’s expense? If there isn’t a cure will this person ever be able to be mainstreamed back into society? What if they had more children? Is history going to repeat itself?
I am not saying I have the anwsers. I am just looking for opinions.
That was my understanding to, that there wsn’t any viable help available. How can being sent to a mental facilty for a few years “cure the illness” or “get it under control” and make this person available to society again?
In my opinion she should go to jail
JuanitaTech suggests that we should help those in jail.
My question is how? Drugs? Therapy? At who’s expense? If there isn’t a cure will this person ever be able to be mainstreamed back into society? What if they had more children? Is history going to repeat itself?
I am not saying I have the anwsers. I am just looking for opinions.
Are you saying that MSBP specifically is a defense, or that it is a “mental defect or disease” and thus arguable as part of an “insanity” defense? My non-lawyerly understanding is that the mental defect or disease itself is not a defense, but that the “not guilty by reason of mental defect or disease” or whatever the legal wording is in a particular jurisdiction is. The prosecutor would then need to prove that at the time the crime was committed the defendant knew the difference between right and wrong and knew that her actions were wrong.
Andrea Yates? The woman who drowned her kids in the bathtub? Have you got a cite for her using a Munchausens by proxy defence?
It’s a convoluted issue – a lot of parents are accused of it and deny having it. A woman here was jailed a couple of weeks ago and she denied having it, let alone doing what she was accused of. There was videotape of her adding Epsom salts to the IV line and claims that she added water to the contents of nappies to make it look like diarrhoea. her family is resolute she is an innocent mother with ill children.
Wasn’t one woman (I forget her name right now) who was an huge advocate for health care reforms in the States accused of this? I seem to recall watching an American Justice once about her…
BTW, the prosecution did not think they would have a strong case using the term “Munchausen by Proxy,” so they opted simply for “child abuse” or “child endangerment.”