Read this article published on the Cercle Psy website.
Distinct from infanticide, which refers to the murder of a child, neonaticide refers to the murder of a newborn less than twenty-four hours old. An act often committed by the mother. For a long time, we’ve been trying to make sense of this phenomenon, to explain the inexplicable. Who are these women who commit the irreparable? Do they present a typical profile?
This is the problem tackled by a team of researchers from Cermes3 at Paris Descartes University (1). Their methodology? To dissect 54 expert documents relating to 17 cases of neonaticide committed between 1996 and 2000. In previous Anglo-Saxon research, a typical profile had been drawn: young single women, primiparous (giving birth for the first time), financially and educationally precarious, mostly living at home with their parents and faced with an unwanted pregnancy.
A fairly ordinary profile
Against all expectations, the results of the French study do not converge with these data. The profile of these mothers turns out to be quite ordinary: 60% of them are already raising other children, and are even described as « good », committed mothers. Only one had already committed four neonaticides. Almost all of them have a professional activity. And 14 of these 17 women have not experienced any discontinuity in their lives during childhood, such as placement or the death of a close relative. Likewise, their daily lives were not particularly marked by violence or crime, since at the time of the events, all had a clean criminal record. Contrary to appearances, only 4 of these mothers suffered from psychotic disorders… whereas the majority suffered from psychopathological disorders resulting directly from the murder of their baby, most of them depressive disorders or even post-traumatic stress.
However, the researchers note an atypical investment by these mothers’ own parents in their upbringing. For almost all of them, grandparents are described as disinvested from their parental functions, although the repercussions of this disinvestment are emotional, the reasons for it are not necessarily.
The parents of neo-naticidal mothers, for example, may be preoccupied with economic and professional concerns, which hinder their availability to their family. Conversely, 5 of these women suffer from excessive investment by their own mothers, and describe a kind of childhood « under control ».
An unstable relational context
The authors of the study noted another recurring theme among these neonaticidal mothers: the instability of their relationship. Either these women had separated before or after the event, or they feared being left by their partner, or their relationship was in trouble.
These women therefore have a particular « psycho-relational » profile, and suffer from significant emotional and social isolation.
The three researchers conclude that these are « hollow » personalities: discreet, reserved women with no history of psychopathy. Their life trajectory is punctuated by « non-factors », i.e. an existence free of trauma, crime or psychiatric history. However, all these mothers had one thing in common: they did not monitor their pregnancies.
(1) Natacha Vellut, Laurence Simmat-Durand, Anne Tursz, « Le portrait des mères néonaticides dans les expertises judiciaires », L’Encéphale, vol. 39 (5), 2013.