Good mothers, bad thoughts: New mothers’ thoughts of intentionally harming their newborns

Abstract

This article explores the accounts of six white, ‘middle-class’ women living in the UK who as first-time or recent mothers experienced thoughts of intentionally harming their newborn infants. Our analytic approach is psychosocial insofar as we take the women's accounts as being conditional on a merging of social, discursive and psychological elements. Two dominant ways of relating to thoughts of harm are highlighted. The first is to do with the exclusion of such thoughts as indicative of unhealthy non-containment and depressive illness. The second involves including thoughts of harm as an extension of maternal vigilance and care. Here we draw on recent feminist understandings of a mother's ambivalence as involving a heightened awareness of her own sense of self and her world through her relation to her child. It is argued that the disassociation of non acted-out destructive impulses from normative mothering perpetuates the usual pathologization of thoughts of harm and the associated vilification of women. Recent calls for the normalization of thoughts of harm that can be experienced by many new mothers are also challenged as leaving in place the idea that the experience of thoughts of harm is incongruous and debilitating to motherhood. In contrast, we make a case for thoughts of destructive harm as being a creative impulse that can be constructively incorporated into mothering and maternal subjectivity.

How do new/recent mothers experience unwanted harm thoughts related to their newborn? A thematic analysis

“…Commonalities in the nature of intentional thoughts have been found previously, including physical harm and infanticide (Fairbrother & Woody, 2008;Murray & Finn, 2012). These IRHTs have been reported less commonly than accidental IRHTs such as contamination (Fairbrother & Woody, 2008).…”

Improving Psychosocial Health, Coping, and Self-Efficacy in Parents of Sleep-Disturbed Young Children

“…Studies provide evidence that repeated aggressive thoughts (e.g., fears of harming the infant) are not rare among new mothers [55,59,62,63] and that such thoughts are triggered by occasions when the baby does not sleep or does not stop crying [64]. Data from our sample show that a high number of mothers (SCL-90-R: 30.31%; SVF-120: 23.98%) and fathers (SCL-90-R: 17.95%; SVF-120: 19.58%) report increased aggression scores.…”

“…using raised voice, losing temper, feeling angry), depression, and anxiety. Similarly, Murray and Finn [64] reasoned that moments of extreme tiredness, stress, and frustration promote thoughts in mothers of intentionally harming the newborn. Other studies report that parents experience increased irritability and anger when fatigued [66] and show over-reactive discipline [67].…”

Puerperal psychosis – a qualitative study of women’s experiences

“…It is interesting that such a strongly biologically explained condition should at the same time be seen as resistible by the women who experience it. These ideas may further coincide with discourses around motherhood which focus on putting the baby first, if necessary at cost to the mother, and the idea that harmful and negative thoughts should and can always be excluded from normative mothering (Murray & Finn, 2012). The presence of the 'snap out of it' view appears to be a generational perspective.…”