Woman to have baby taken away at birth...

[SharpMolarBear]

because she is likely to suffer from Munschausen's syndrome by proxy

Actually, I don't think anyone really here has passed judgement on Fran herself, if anyhting accusations were flung at the professionals involved....
sure that shouldn't mean people can't discuss even the pure existence of the syndrom the person is accused of being in danger of having...etc....

ruty you are of course entitled to your opinion but I would like to think you had looked more closely at my postings.

I have not neen accusational, confrontational or anything other than reasonable in a discussion where none of us know the full details.

We all look at a situation and cannot remove our feelings totally. Our experiences make us what we are.

It is right and proper that people question and indeed 'fight' for things.

If I in this situation I had to choose a side to fight for, it would be for the rights of the unborn child. I am not involved and can only hope that there is a good outcome for mother and baby.

Can we all just agree we have our own points of view, each relevant but not always agreed by all posters?

No you were twisting them unless you really don't understand the concept of declaring an interest.

Could you provide some sources for these cases where Meadow has testified against fellow doctors, because I've only heard of where he has been involved in testifying against parents. Has he published any papers on iatrogenic (doctor-caused) disease? Certainly he gained his fame and fortune through the MSBP diagnosis and was an expert in hundreds if not thousands of cases.

LaDida, I think child abuse exists, so doctors and social workers should follow the same procedures they do in any cases of suspected child abuse. However you'll see the list up there for suspecting a case of MSBP is subjective and fuzzy to say the least. I don't think it could be called scientific by any stretch of the imagination.

I would very much like to hear from you LaDida, you NoNameToday and anybody else who is defending the MSBP diagnosis to comment on Roy Meadow and his medical colleauges giving a toddler 20g of salt. People seem to be ignoring that for some reason, despite the fact that we have his own admission that it was done in a published medical paper no less.

One other thing, we see that healthy babies from middle class families are taken from their parents whereas neglected babies who might be hard to place for adoption are allowed to remain with their parents. It's not too much of a stretch to think that social workers will be unwilling to take these hard to place children because once again it will affect the targets for adoption they have been set.

Hope this works elizabetth

www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume2/j2_2_4.htm

It didn't work NoNameToday even when I pasted it into my browser. Could you quote part of the relevant text like I did with Roy Meadow's first article on MSBP.

Comment already made Elizabetth, see my earlier post: "Elizabetth, I have no doubt that Meadows acted dubiously in some circumstances and the ethics of his actions can at times be seriously questioned."

The list of symptoms/signs/reasons to consider FII as a possibilty are, as a whole, unscientific. I agree. However clearly there are some elements of science, eg test results that are felt to be phsiologically impossible and in addition there are some elements of art, eg considering that if a carer is not present or is observed constantly then symptoms in the child do not occur. Science and art combine in most of medicine.

You still haven't really answered my question about whether or not you believe in the existence of FII and if so when you think it should be considered ie if the criteria already put forward here aren't, as a whole, sufficient, then what would be? How do you think it could be scientifically proven?

Elizabetth, I'm also interested in your evidence for the assertion that healthy babies from middle-class families are being removed for adoption?

IT is not my forte elizabetth, this is part of it

Evolution of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy as a Diagnosis

Munchausen syndrome by proxy derives from adult Munchausen syndrome, which was first described in the literature in 1951 by Asher. In adult Munchausen syndrome, the patient fabricates and/or induces his own symptoms and presents himself for treatment. The description of Munchausen syndrome by proxy was first made in 1977, after British pediatrician Roy Meadow recognized that mothers of two children in his practice were engaging in dissimulations that put their children in the patient role, using the children as proxies. Subsequently, Meadow has collected and presented a number of cases, noting from the outset that is was often the doctors who harmed the child most through their unnecessary tests and treatments.

Originally, Meadow observed the mother of the child as perpetrator and the child as a simple victim, stating in 1982 that only children up to age six were used as proxies because a child older than that would likely reveal the deception. After two more years of study, however, he reported in 1984 that an older child could act as a confederate of the mother, with the two involved in a sort of folie â deux, a pattern that might be perpetuated even after the child reached adulthood. Thus, Meadow began to describe the complex psychological nature of MSP.

Today, our understanding of the perpetrator role has expanded as well. For example, MSP has been found to be practiced with children not the perpetrator's own (Elkind, 1983; United States vs. Woods, 1973). Sigal, Carmel, AItmark, and Silfen (1988) described a male perpetrator abusing two female adults, while Sinanan and Haughton (1986) cited the bizarre case of a female perpetrator who manipulated nurses and their families into the proxy role, seeing to it that they received about 100 unnecessary injections, from which one of the nurses became very ill.

Sorry to other folks if this clogs up the board a bit!

I'll answer that in the negative LaDiDaDi, it can't be scientifically proven by the methods or symptoms that were outlined in that article. They are unscientific in the extreme.

Anyway I'm not making any claims for FII, you are doing that, so perhaps you'd like to say how you think it can be scientifically proven.

Do you have an interest in this by the way or are you a lay observer like me?

"Science and art combine in most of medicine."

Actually Western medicine is mostly based on science, which is why in the past 50 or 60 years it has been effective.

What you've quoted there doesn't support your claims nonametoday - you said Meadow had testified against doctors. Once again I'd like to see some proof of that because I don't actually think it is true.

Also that site you linked to is well, let me put this politely, a little controversial. It's run by Dr Ralph Underwager. If you google his name and Padika you'll see why.

LaDiDaDi I have to admit I'm going on hearsay about middle class parents having their children taken. It's certainly the view of people in the know about the Family Courts. However the draconian secrecy that surround them means that there aren't any figures, however it's hard not to notice a woman being threatened with her child being taken away from her when she has done nothing wrong compared to a little baby who was visited countless times by social workers but left to die.

Also I'd like to hear a more specific comment from you on Roy Meadow dosing a toddler with salt. More at least than "he acted dubiously at some times". If a doctor is treating his child patients like this can we really trust him to be any kind of a judge of parents and carers?

I'm arguing that I don't think it can be scientifically proven if you mean to say a specific test will prove it in every case.

I think that a collection of the signs/symptoms present can lead it to be considered as a possibility. Then, depending upon the individual child, some further evidence to refute or support the possibility can be obtained, either by some scientific investigation or by observation of what happens if the child is removed form the carer giver thought to be responsible or observed constantly when with them. In either case I mean the child being placed within a hospital setting rather than removed as in foster care/local authority care. The summation of this may provide evidence sufficient to support the diagnosis of FII which in turn may lead the local authority to act to remove the child from the care of the individual responsible.

In medicine science often helps us to make a diagnosis but actually there is an art to considering the right diagnosis in the first place. You can do all the tests in the world but you don't know why you are doing them then you are unlikely to get very far in helping a patient.

I am not a lay person but a medical professional interested in how the lay public perceive child protection issues.

This thread seems to have been taken over by FII.

In an earier post I mentioned that factors other than the mothers mental health may have a bearing on the decision to take a child into care.

In Fran's situation it may be her abusive father, maybe a colluding mother, or the abusive ex partner/putative father who have contributed to the deciscion in this case.

We don't know and that is why it is so sad that people are so ready to fight and I use the word loosely for someone elses cause without being in posession of the relevant details.

I think you need to scrutinise my posts more closely elizabetth.

Nowhere did I use the word testified..

By all means continue this if you are prepared to be fair to all concerned, but, I don't believe you are, therefore I will leave it here.

My mistake, you said he said that doctors had harmed the children most, not that he testified against them.

I don't really see how that lets him off the hook for his discredited syndrome. For example Angela and Ian Gay were convicted of manslaughter because they had allegedly poisoned a chid in their care with salt. The prosecution was based in part on Roy Meadow's theories.

It turned out later that the child had had "salt diabetes" and his body was unable to regulate sodium levels in his blood.

This kind of case is what happens when the authorities listen to unscientific theories that are based on subjective viewpoints instead of actually examining the evidence and the science behind it.

Have you been involved in MSBP cases LaDiDaDi?

I'd ask the same question of nonametoday.

Oh and I'll just repeat my question as you've once again avoided answering it LaDiDaDi -

"Also I'd like to hear a more specific comment from you on Roy Meadow dosing a toddler with salt. More at least than "he acted dubiously at some times". If a doctor is treating his child patients like this can we really trust him to be any kind of a judge of parents and carers?"

its a very sad case indeed
I think, reading between the lines the personaility disorder might also paly a part. I dont want to go into too much info but having worked on cases where Personiality disorder is involved a lot of doctors have strong views on their ability to parent.

L

My undestanding of MBP hasnt been disproven but has been renamed "fabricated induced illness".

eh? I have not been accusational or confrontational either. Neither have i accused you of being, NoName. I simply said I thought the correlation you made, between some of us feeling doubtful about the justice of this case, and us not being as aware of child abuse [in very simple terms of neglect from parents who don't care enough] as you are, was nonsensical. It is. sorry if you find that insulting.

I've not personally been involved in any cases of FII, as I'll continue to refer to this as.

If you're asking me to libel Roy Meadows then I won't. I think that he has made mistakes in his work. That does not mean that everything that he has done should be disregarded.

And of course everyone thinks the rights of the unborn child are the most important. It is just that some of us think the rights of the unborn child to have its own mother care for it/ breastfeed, etc, are very important. I do not know the ins and outs of this case. From what i can decipher from the psychologist reports Fran should at least have a chance to prove herself as a mother under careful supervision. And i find it worrying that a paediatrician who has never met her and knows little about pyschiatric conditions seemed to have the final say. that is all.

at risk of everyone hating me - I totally agree with pre emptive action in cases where there are a strong and reasonable suspicion that the children will come to harm if left with the mother. In my opinion and experience, it does not happen enough and too many children experience awful things at the hnads of their parents, that are entirely predctable just from meeting their parents for 2 minutes, and yet social services do nothing. I don't know the facts of this case - maybe it is really wrong here, but just speaking in general terms - children are so vulnerable.

"If you're asking me to libel Roy Meadows then I won't."

No I'm asking you to give your opinion. The facts are already there about the salt fed to the toddler. He himself published them.

Why do the MSBP defenders keep bringing up libel? I'm not asking you to call him names, I'm asking you to comment on his actions.

What in Meadow's work do you think is worth preserving? Why do you think an accusation of child abuse needs to be elaborated with a diagnosis of MSBP or FII of the caregiver (usually the mother)? Why is an accusation of child abuse with evidence to support it not enough in your opinion?

Aaargh! I really think that we are just going round and round in circles.

I believe that FII exists. I believe that highlighting it's existence was a good thing. How this was done and how other professionals may have dealt with individual cases may leave a lot to be desired. I do not know the full details of the case in which Meadows fed a toddler salt though if it is as you describe then I think he took action which is ethically questionable.

I think that the descriptive term of FII is in itself useful. The carer may not have themselves physically harmed the child in anyway instead using others to harm the child by unnecessary medical procedures. So to simply say that the carer has physically abused the child would be inaccurate. They may appear to be loving and have a good relationship with the child but if the child is given the constant message that they are ill when they are well then they are being emotionally abused even though they may respond to the carer normally, or at least in the way that an ill child would respond to their carer.

FII is not intended to be a term used to give a diagnosis to the abuser but to be a category of child abuse that is relevant to the child.