Dr. Phillip Resnick is Director of Forensic Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University and is often called as an expert witness in these types of cases.
Dr. Resnick says statistics show about five hundred infants and children are murdered by parents each year in the U.S. When it’s an infant up to a year old, it’s known as infanticide; for a child, it's known as filicide.
In 1970, Dr. Resnick coined the term ‘neonaticide’ for when a mother kills her newborn in the first 24 hours of life.
There have been dozens of cases in the news over the years, but the questions are always, "How could she, and why?"
"The most common reason is that the baby is unwanted" Dr. Resnick said.
He says the average age of a mother who kills a newborn is 19 and often parental disapproval of the pregnancy is the motivation.
"A woman who denies the pregnancy or does not plan to keep the baby, does not form that attachment, so then it becomes like an ‘it’ just passing through her like a peach pit, there's no connection so it seems very cruel and heartless because she hasn't formed a bond to that baby like normal mothers do,” Dr. Resnick said.
He says most often women who kill their newborns have concealed their pregnancy and there’s rarely a mental defense.
"In a study I did of women who killed their newborns, none were psychotic, they were not significantly depressed, they didn't make associated suicide attempts and instead they were just reacting to the situation, the crisis," he explained.
In a follow-up study of women who faced criminal charges, Dr. Resnick found an interesting connection.
"Most of them were married, mothers and good mothers, so that suggests rather than this being a character defect, this is a situational crisis."
And as for women who do this more than once, "even though they use it as a form of birth control, it doesn't mean that they're a threat to society or that they'll commit other crimes."
Dr. Resnick has seen a wide range of punishment for this crime, but the average prison sentence is nine years. He says the court is more lenient to teenagers, but sentences can range anywhere from probation to life.