“…This was first noticed in the 18th century, when Büttner [13], in his account of 85 cases of infanticide in Königsberg, briefly described 3 infants who were starved to death. This is not an extremely rare event: over 80 have been reported, including a series of 13 from Düsseldorf [14]. These reports were written by pathologists, and few have commented on the mental state of the mothers [15,16,17,18], but, although there is a differential diagnosis, most will have involved emotional rejection.…”