Maternal Infanticide in Australia: Mental Disturbance During the Postpartum Period

Bortoli, Lillian De; Coles, Jan; Dolan, Mairead

doi:10.1080/13218719.2012.719103

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Based on the impact of neglecting maternal mental health on children’s rights, and in the context of the South African Primary Health Care system, the author makes the following recommendations: That maternal and child health services integrate systematic screening for pre and postnatal maternal depression, which is feasible [ 26 ]. This is especially appropriate in South Africa as a low-resource setting [ 90 ], with many people having a low socio-economic status, which is a risk factor for maternal depression [ 91 ]. The routine screening will come with the following benefits: It will enable access to mental health services for a significant proportion of women [ 36 ].…”

Section: Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That maternal and child health services integrate systematic screening for pre and postnatal maternal depression, which is feasible [ 26 ]. This is especially appropriate in South Africa as a low-resource setting [ 90 ], with many people having a low socio-economic status, which is a risk factor for maternal depression [ 91 ]. The routine screening will come with the following benefits:…”

Section: Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies have reported a strong association between maternal depression and child mortality [ 89 , 90 ]. Moreover, because of the poor mental health status, maternal depression has been associated with a significant risk for suicide or infanticide [ 91 ], which are the most severe outcomes of maternal depression [ 92 , 93 ]. The implications are that several children’s deaths continue to occur because of failure to diagnose and treat their mothers for depression.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neglecting Maternal Depression Compromises Child Health and Development Outcomes, and Violates Children’s Rights in South Africa

Mokwena

2021

Children

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The intention of the South African Children’s Act 38 of 2005 is to provide guarantees for the protection and promotion of optimum health and social outcomes for all children. These guarantees are the provision of basic nutrition, basic health care and social services, optimal family or parental care, as well as protection from maltreatment, neglect and abuse services. However, despite these guarantees, child and maternal mortality remain high in South Africa. The literature identifies maternal depression as a common factor that contributes to negative health and social outcomes for both mothers and their children. Despite the availability of easy-to-use tools, routine screening for maternal depression is not carried out in public health services, which is the source of services for the majority of women in South Africa. The results are that the mothers miss out on being diagnosed and treated for maternal depression, which results in negative child outcomes, such as malnutrition, as well as impacts on mental, social and physical health, and even death. The long-term impacts of untreated maternal depression include compromised child cognitive development, language acquisition and deviant behaviors and economic disadvantage in later life. The author concludes that the neglect of screening for, and treatment of maternal depression therefore violates the constitutional rights of the affected children, and goes against the spirit of the Constitution. The author recommends that maternal and child health services integrate routine screening for maternal depression, which will not only satisfy the Constitutional mandate, but also improve the health and developmental outcomes of the children and reduce child mortality.

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Section: Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neglecting Maternal Depression Compromises Child Health and Development Outcomes, and Violates Children’s Rights in South Africa

Mokwena

2021

Children

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“…The research to be reviewed is composed of studies from two major groups, the first group being large-scale studies, like the 10 year plus retrospective studies of filicide deaths in NSW (Butler & Buxton, 2013), Victoria (Brown et al, 2014) and Australia (Brown et al, 2019), and the second group being smaller scale studies examining sub-categories of filicide deaths, like neonaticide (De Bortoli et al, 2013a), maternal infanticide (De Bortoli et al, 2013b) and familicide (Johnson, 2005(Johnson, , 2008 and issues such as the role of parental separation in filicide (Brown et al, 2014;Kirkwood, 2012) and case studies of perpetrators' characteristics, backgrounds and personality (Eriksson et al, 2016;Eriksson et al, 2019).…”

Section: Purposementioning

confidence: 99%

Filicide: the Australian story

2020

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A filicide death, meaning the killing of a child by their parent or equivalent guardian, is a tragic event. Sadly, a UK study suggests Australia has the fourth highest rate of filicide among similar developed nations. Since Australian research studies on the incidence of filicide, or indeed on any other aspect of the problem, are limited, it is impossible to know if this finding is correct or not. However, in the last several years more research on filicide has emerged in Australia and by reviewing the recent research in detail, this article develops an integrated analysis of Australian filicide research and contributes to the knowledge bank on Australian filicide that can be used by professionals undertaking practice and research in intervention and prevention. Analysis of the studies shows one child dies at the hands of a parent every fortnight and that this number has not changed for many years. The analysis identifies the profiles of victims and perpetrators. The constellation of circumstances and stressors associated with each of the parental perpetrator groups is discussed, including the perpetrators’ contact with, and mostly unsuccessful use of, services. Based on the analysis, a way forward to prevention is proposed.

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