INFANTICIDE: France: Sergine and Joel Le Moaligou face trial after death of baby fed only on breast milk

29 March 2011

Court hears parents became vegan after watching documentary about abattoirs and refused to eat any animal products

Two strict vegans have gone on trial in France charged with "neglect or food deprivation" after the death of their breastfed 11-month-old daughter who was found to be suffering from vitamin deficiency.

Sergine and Joel Le Moaligou called an ambulance to their home in the village of Saint-Maulvis – 90 miles north of Paris – in March 2008 after their daughter Louise became listless. By the time paramedics arrived, the baby had died.
The police were alerted after the ambulance crew noticed the baby was pale and thin and a doctor refused to issue a death certificate. A postmortem showed the child, who had been fed only on her 37-year-old mother's milk, weighed 5.7kg when she should have been about 8kg.
She was also suffering from deficiency of vitamins A and B12, which may have left her susceptible to infection. She died of a pneumonia-related illness.
Medical experts told the court in Amiens that the vitamin deficiency could have been caused by an unbalanced diet. While anxious not to call into question the couple's lifestyle, Anne-Laure Sandretto, the deputy prosecutor, admitted: "The problem with a vitamin B12 deficiency could be linked to the mother's eating habits."
The parents, who also have a 13-year-old daughter who was not found to be suffering from any deficiencies, said they became vegan after seeing a TV programme about "how animals were taken to abattoirs", said the mother's lawyer, Stephane Daquo.

At the time of their daughter's death, they were running an organic food business and refused to eat any animal products. Daquo said they had a mistrust of traditional medicine and preferred to treat their children's complaints with advice from books.

"The couple did not follow the doctor's advice to take the baby to hospital when they went for her nine-month checkup and found she was suffering from bronchitis and was losing weight," he said. Instead they treated her with cabbage poultices, mustard and camphor and washed her with earth and clay instead of giving her baths, the court heard.
Daquo said the couple had been reading "the wrong things at the wrong moment". "They preferred to use recipes [treatment] based on clay or cabbage poultices that they got from their books," he said.
Patrick Quenel, lawyer for the father, whose business has gone into liquidation, said the couple were "completely aware of the mistakes they made".
They have been charged with "neglect or food deprivation followed by death" and face a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if convicted. The hearing is expected to last until Friday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/vegans-trial-death-baby-breast-milk

NEONATICIDE: France: Survey

New light shed on mothers who kill their babies

By Judy Cooper, Children's editor on December 13, 2010

It seems to dismiss the idea that it is young, poor, unemployed single women who tend to kill their new-born babies.

Researchers reviewed the case records of 26 courts in three regions of France that involved the death of a child in its first few days of life between 1996 and 2000 and found the cases made up almost a third (27%) of all intentional violent deaths during this period. They also seemed to show that the rate of newborn killings is actually five times higher than official statistics in France record.
The average age of the mothers involved was 26 and a third had at least three children already. Two-thirds had not used contraception while the rest had 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. There was also no evidence that these mothers were mentally ill or had been abused as children.
However, half of the mothers were depressed and what seemed to distinguish them were low levels of self-esteem, emotional immaturity, dependency on others and fear of abandonment.
The authors commented: "Our findings suggest that preventative action, targeting only young, poor, unemployed and single women or women in pregnancy denial may not be appropriate."

INFANTICIDE: Australia: Keli Lane

Angela Shanahan : December 18, 2010
Keli Lane, convicted of murdering her newborn baby Tegan, fits the profile of maternal killers.

The notion that a mother could not kill her baby is demonstrably false.
THE conviction of Keli Lane for murdering her middle child, Tegan, after concealing the pregnancy seems by most standards a bizarre, horrific story.
The fact that she hid five pregnancies in all -- two aborted, two that proceeded with the babies adopted out, and baby Tegan -- has already prompted a puzzled outcry. How can a mother do this? Why didn't she use contraception or have another abortion?
For many it is a matter of her being the "poor thing"; she was just crazy. But was she mad or just bad? It would be presumptuous and facile of me to come down on either side and an appeal against the jury conviction is expected.
But a couple of facts need to be considered if interest in this case is to progress beyond the ghoulishly banal and broaden our understanding of why women may kill their infants.
First, the notion that a mother could not kill her baby is demonstrably false. Not only do mothers kill their infants, but when an infant is killed it is usually by the mother.
This month, some very disturbing statistics based on judicial data were released in France by the Inserm Institute following the publicity surrounding the case of Dominique Cottrez, who killed eight of her newborn children during about 17 years. They have caused great disturbance in that country and abroad.
The findings showed that more than five times the number of French infants are killed by their mothers within 24 hours of birth -- neonaticide -- than the official mortality statistics have indicated -- or 2.1 cases per 100,000 births compared with the official rate of 0.39 cases.
The average age of these women was 26. One-third already had at least three children. More than half the women lived with their child's father. Two-thirds were employed in jobs that did not differ significantly from women in the general population regarding occupation.
What is more, the vast majority did not have frank mental illness, nor were there any true cases of denial of pregnancy (a phenomenon that is not uncommon in teenagers). Most of the women, however, appeared to have "low self-esteem, be immature and [be] dependent". None used contraception.
Except for the fact that Lane hid her pregnancies to the point of playing water polo prior to her labour and going to a wedding after she gave birth, the similarities of these statistics to what we know of her case are uncanny.
So what does this say about the "mad or just bad" question? It may look on the surface as if she is just bad. After all, if a father killed multiple offspring, he would be regarded as a monster and certainly not as a poor deluded victim of his own unreal expectations.
Although there is much more abuse and killing of children by mothers (and boyfriends of mothers) than fathers, we tend to excuse mothers. We may well ask why.
The biggest problem with the crime of infanticide is that the mothers don't always fit into two distinct categories, mad or bad. Because most of us cannot conceive of murdering a newborn we jump to the conclusion that the offending mothers are all mad. They all must have post-partum psychosis or whatever. Unfortunately the French study seems to negate this.
However, there are degrees of madness and badness. These women simply feel nothing for their newborn, many of them deny their existence or insist, as Lane did, that they are still alive. In this case, the fact that Lane hid her pregnancies may lead one to suspect that denial or delusion was more of a factor in her psychology.
There are common threads among many mothers who commit infanticide. One is that they often become pregnant multiple times without any view to keeping or even adopting the child. Hiding the pregnancy is also common.
Lane managed to keep her pregnancy from her boyfriend and Cottrez managed to keep all eight pregnancies from her husband.
So why did Lane not use contraception or have an abortion, especially since she was a serious athlete? One should remember that contraception and abortion are very different, despite the attempts of the feminists and family planners to equate the two, and they require different decisions.
Contraception requires a definite rational decision not to have children at a particular time and can be difficult to bother with, both physically and psychologically, unless one is in a committed steady relationship.
By all accounts Lane was very insecure. She had been quite promiscuous and although she apparently hoped for marriage, she was obviously too insecure in her relationships to have a child openly. It is possible she did not even know the identity of the father.
Emotionally insecure women with unrealistic career expectations such as Lane are often incapable of making a considered decision about their emotional future, so they are incapable of thinking about contraception.
With nothing but the forlorn hope for emotional security and a terror of scaring off partners with unplanned pregnancies, women such as this often have multiple abortions. Abortion is more of a quick way out. But we know it can cause terrible long-term trauma. And Lane had already had not one but two abortions, the first when she was only in high school. Draw your own conclusions.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/complexities-beyond-bad-or-mad-that-drive-mothers-to-murder/story-fn562txd-1225972411186