Neonaticide

Common card · No. 420803

Neonaticide is the deliberate act of a parent murdering their own child during the first 24 hours of life. As a noun, the word "neonaticide" may also refer to anyone who practices or who has practiced this. Neonaticide is relatively rare in developed countries, but most of these murders remain secret: ...every year, hundreds of women commit neonaticide: they kill their newborns or let them die. Most neonaticides remain undiscovered, but every once in a while a janitor follows a trail of blood to a tiny body in a trash bin, or a woman faints and doctors find the remains of a placenta inside her. Infanticide as a whole is more commonly committed by mothers than fathers, but neonaticide specifically is near-exclusively committed by mothers; fatherly cases of neonaticide are so rare that they are individually recorded. A 1999 United States Department of Justice study concluded that between 1976 and 1997 in the United States, mothers were responsible for a higher share of children killed during...

Read on Wikipedia