nurse convicted for force feeding her baby to death

[lou19]

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/11/nurse-jailed-baby-force-feeding
.... and still she claims she did nothing wrong!!!I am just so horrified by this...how widespread is this practice of feeding babies with a milk jug?as a social worker I'd like to know....

That's so sad :(

Goodness how sad! Never heard of this practice before but the article makes it sound as if it is or was part of some cultures. Poor woman seems to have body image issues she was projecting on her daughter and it's sad that at this day and age no GP or HV noticed the problem, but at the same time how was she employed as a nurse?!

Not widespread at all lou. I suspect from all I've read that this woman has some kind of problem. She claimed anxiety about her baby's weight and said that where she came from in Africa it was common, but this has been rejected by just about anyone else from the same area.
There were lots of similar issues with her other children (although I don't for one minute think anyone realised just what she was doing) who she obsessed about regarding their weight.
Might be worth seeing if you can find a copy of the Serious Case Review for more in depth look at any failings in the case.

I've never seen or heard of this method of feeding a baby before lou

I do think there is pressure on mothers in general to wean babies onto solids the minute they turn six months...my lo flatly refused solids until about ten months. I thought I would handle it, but I found it incredibly frustrating and worrying at the time and even tried to force her mouth open on a couple of occasions I'm ashamed to say. So I can understand that if there is cultural pressure, whether it's from family or wider community, for your baby to eat "proper food", this would put a lot of stress on the mother. also, ironic how the husband got away scott-free. er, wasn't he aware of what his wife was doing?or is it just that as a man, it wasn't seen as his responsibility...:-(

didn't pick up on any mention of a dh in that article

i have never heard of this, and for years i worked as a SW in an area with a large west african community.

very sad.

sorry not sure if it was in that one or in the daily mirror one. just a one liner saying "the husband who cannot be named for legal reasons was not charged". I just think that had the shoe been on the other foot, ie had the husband killed the baby, mum would have probably been done for "failure to protect". or at the very least she would have been publicly named and shamed. not that I am trying to draw attention away from what this ignorant woman has done to her child.

Didn't realise the husband had not been charged. Tbh I think if he was in the house then he should have been but perhaps there was not enough evidence against him - I imagine the CPS wouldn't let it through unless they thought the evidence was enough to convict.

I've heard of this before. To my knowledge, it is usually done with girls reaching puberty in areas where plumpness is seen as a sign of health and happiness and done to help girls enter a good marriage. I don't know of anywhere that does it to infants, though I have heard it done to girls as young as five

See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force-feeding#Gavage_for_girls_before_marriage and

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/01/mauritania-force-feeding-marriage

As the latter article says, the practice was dying away until political uncertainty swept the area and there are many trying to stop the practice.

that's probably what happened. I just find there always seems to be a harsher judgement when women harm a child than when men do, though three years for killing a baby in such a manner really isn't that long...it's good to hear that this force feeding is not as widespread as this woman would have liked the court to believe, but does the 1,000 signatures strong petition asking for mercy on her behalf show that it is not considered totally outlandish, either?

Sorry if I am being dim here but if this is common practice in some countries it must 'work' as a method of feeding? Do children not often die from aspirating food? She says she was fed this way. What went wrong? This sounds like a very distressing case for everyone involved

I feel very sorry for her - there seems to be no doubt that she did not intend to harm her child. Now she has to live with the consequences of her own stupidity.

High levels of anxiety about weaning, even desperation, are not unusual.

I can understand that as she is a qualified nurse, and an experienced mother, her DH might have sincerely believed she knew best. I'm glad he got off, for the sake of the other children.

doesn't sound like it's that common practice from the comments on here. yes she says she was fed that way but the notion of what we consider normal growing up is very relative isn't it, there are children who are sexually abused from a young age and they consider it "normal" for adults to relate to them in that way. imagine how distressing it would be to be fed like a goose for foie gras :( even if it is common practice, there needs to be an education campaign around the risks and the distress it would cause to a young child.

whollyghost, that is probably the only positive aspect to him getting away scott-free in my opinion, at least the children still have their father. but my god.

Crikey. The mother sounds astoundingly ignorant. Surely school would be a better place for her than jail?

a couple of points stand out to me:

whatever West African practice may be she must have been doing something different: there is a large W.A. community in this country, yet deaths like this are not common occurrence

she had been educated: health workers had been pulling her up on this practice before and she had refused to listen- so she could hardly plead ignorance

she is supposed to be a trained nurse, yet she believed there are no nutriments in milk

conclusion: there is something wrong with this woman that you probably couldn't solve with an educational class in infant nutrition

but I could sort of see how cultural practice might get the husband off: if he is West African too, he probably would never have learnt anything about infant rearing and may well have been expected to keep out of it

and if he is not a nurse and has not been involved with health practitioners, he could arguably plead ignorance

cory - I would love to agree, but sadly training and diplomas are no guarantee of knowledge and skills these days.

I think it is terribly sad. I think she may have had mental health issues making her obsessive about weight. I have been obsessive about weight gain with my ds who failed to thrive, I understand the desperation although I didn't do anything stupid thank God, it may be fuelled by her being a nurse and worrying about things going wrong with brain development. Or perhaps she is a really shockingly trained nurse. It spiralled out of control, she has lost her child.. but did she mean to do it? I think it seems as though she really genuinely believed that she was doing this for her child's benefit. 1,000 people signed a petition to support her, this suggests they did too because generally people don't support intentional child abuse, no matter how close they were to someone.

It's just tragic, I think. I don't see what good a jail term really does.

I think it's almost certainly mental health issues; people were trying to warn her and they couldn't get through to her. Imo she needs treatment.

Almost every time I hear of a high profile case where a woman has killed her baby, and has been jailed for it, I wonder what is gained from treating her as a criminal? The facts almost always seem to indicate mental health issues.

Mind you, I sometimes think that when I hear of men killing their children too. Some of them, I am sure, should have had treatment.

There's a huge difference between bad and mad. Perfectly sane people do dreadful things. You can't work backwards from 'terrible, appalling event' to 'perpetrator must be mad'. This woman may have a mental illness, or she may be perfectly sane and just very misguided - or actively malevolent. You can't deduce that from what she did - you have to know a hell of a lot more about her, rather than the act itself.

yes, it was the back story about her obsession about weight, problems with previous children etc that made me think mental health problems