ISTM the point, or at least what I saw as the point when I made that remark, is whether the person in question was outright delusional and literally did not know what they were doing. Not whether they had some other kind of mental pathology that made them more receptive to consciously choosing evil courses of action.
Postpartum-psychosis infanticide is, unfortunately, a well-known phenomenon, often committed by mothers who love their children dearly and are devastated by their deaths.
If you are psychotically delusional to the extent that you literally believe you’re putting your baby down for a nap in its crib rather than putting it in the oven, then you are unquestionably massively fucked up in your head, but I really have a hard time calling that “evil”.
That, ISTM, is significantly different from saying “oh, that poor school shooter wasn’t evil, they were just depressed.” No, if you understand that you’re committing murder and you do it anyway, that’s an evil act, no matter how depressed you may be.
If, on the other hand, you’re psychotically delusional to the extent that you literally believe you’re washing a car or something rather than shooting people, that’s another matter.
My first wife had postpartum depression. She had trouble dealing with being a mom and had trouble feeling a connection with our daughter. It was heartbreaking to see and she got better with time, and I did all I could to be supportive and be a total partner in taking care of our daughter.
It happens because mothers go through a shit ton of chemical stuff during pregnancy. The physical changes are brought on by hormones that do all kinds of wacky stuff to the body and brain. My second wife also had changes though they were more physical than mental (like having diabetes solely during the pregnancy that went away afterwards).
Of course none of that approaches the level of a psychosis that causes a person to lose reality but seeing some extreme changes firsthand as the result of pregnancy I believe it.
Now from what I read, if PPP is going to occur it usually starts within 2 weeks of giving birth and won’t last past 4. If the baby was a full month of age I am guessing that this isn’t what happened here. But who knows how much of any of this reporting is accurate. Maybe the baby was younger.
It’s also extremely rare, somewhere between 1-2 out of every 1,000 women giving birth will experience it. That combined with the timing makes it extremely unlikely that this is the case.
You are correct; In the US a disease is considered rare if it affects 60 or fewer people out of 100,000. In the European union the standard is 50 or fewer out of 100,000.
Very true, but it is considered an emergency condition, typically requiring immediate hospitalization and oversight to protect mother and child. What is the percentage of mothers who are quickly diagnosed and given the proper care? I have no idea.
Anyway, you people are nice. I sideswiped a perfectly good rant thread about people who do evil shit, to mention some tentative potential objections concerning an apparent murderer who might have had an absolutely horrible and tragic level of diminished capacity rather than evilness, and y’all immediately start thinking seriously about that issue and looking up medical sources and all.
Cockles warmed. (Of course, I know at least part of it is due just to the notorious inability of Dopers to resist any even slightly intriguing-looking rabbit hole, but still. )
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