Entering the adult world as I graduated, I knew I was going to face many new experience – some good and some bad, but I never thought I would receive the call that my friend’s infant son was murdered. At only twenty years old, it felt like a lot to comprehend myself, I could not even begin to fathom what my dear friend was feeling. She came home one day to find that her baby was unresponsive and that her boyfriend had tried to cover it up, but thankfully the coroner was able to determine that this was not an accident – in a jealous rage, her boyfriend had took a blunt force blow to the infants head and ended the child’s life. This traumatic event is the catalyst in my research topic: infant murders. In the course of my research, I was shocked …show more content…
Numerous cases reported of infant murders have been because the mother was facing some sort of mental health issue, which ultimately got the best of the mother. Some of these conditions the mothers face are bipolar disorder, depression and hallucinations. Again, these murders are called acutely psychotic filicide. Some of these mothers may believe that they are saving their infant from a worse fate (Marks, Kumar.) Furthermore, many mothers will often face postpartum mental disorders after giving birth. The fluctuation in hormones just before and after giving birth can cause this postpartum disorder in women and is frequently known as the, “baby blues.” The baby blues are very common after childbirth and occur in eighty-percent of women, ranging from mood swings to depression, as their hormones are beginning to stabilize (Mental Health America.) The symptoms of the baby blues should only last a few weeks, when the symptoms exceed a few weeks is when the problem may be more severe. It is found that in ten to twenty percent of mothers, postpartum depression (PPD) will occur and is much more intense than the baby blues (Mental Health America.) PPD is one of the factors that can lead to neonaticide and infanticide. In the case of my friend, her boyfriend had attempted to plead insanity, but was not granted and received life in …show more content…
Thus the children who are born with drug problems can be seen more of as unattractive and a burden which leads to the unwanted child filicide. The mothers, on the hand, though who are addicted to drugs and or alcohol are more than often not adequately in control of themselves – which can also lead to infanticide. Another common case of infant murders are suicides. Many of the poorer, young mothers feel trapped and even some of the postpartum symptoms catch up with mother and they feel that taking their own life is the only way out, and ultimately they take the infants life too. In the case of stepparents, it makes sense that the stepparent is more likely to be harder on a stepchildren, seeing that one of the main purposes of evolution and offspring is to continue on ones set of genetics. In psychology it is found that men often look for a women is more likely to bear him children, which only reinforces this idea of continuing genetics. In the case of my friend, it also confirms the idea of continuing genetics because the boyfriend admitted that he killed the infant because the child was not his and he wanted his own family with my