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Because she invented chronic illnesses for her son, a mother has been found guilty of child abuse in the United States. This is called Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a fairly rare but destructive mental condition.
The story is shocking and inconsistent with the idea of a loving parent. In the United States, in Oklahoma, a mother has been found guilty of abusing her young son: for years, she had been inventing illnesses for him when he was in good health, in order to receive money. .
Years of child abuse
For years, this mother therefore consulted many pediatricians for pathologies never found in the little boy. After a difficult divorce, the phenomenon has amplified according to information from the Quebec newspaper.
The now single mother consulted multiple health professionals and blamed her son for problems eating, using his hands and speaking, until doctors treated the boy. For 4 years, she even went so far as to place her son on a drip, without however adding the vitamins necessary for his health, creating significant deficiencies. The young boy then had to be hospitalized several times for malnutrition and hair loss. Last sordid detail, this mom would have consciously left her son in diapers filled with urine, thus causing a urinary tract infection and bacterial infections.
Arrested in 2019, the woman received six counts of child abuse and two counts of child neglect. She was convicted of child abuse last week and faces life in prison in the US state. The young boy now lives with his father who, given the circumstances, has inherited full custody of the child.
Münchhausen syndrome by proxy, a rare syndrome of child abuse
According to the charges, this woman probably suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy. That is, all of the child’s symptoms and treatments would have been based on his parent’s lies. A fortunately rare disorder but which can cause many people to suffer. “I have never encountered one in my career but it is something that you see in medical studies” explains Dr. Mahieu Bellahsen, psychiatrist. “These are generally cases of children who have diseases that cannot be explained, which trigger diabetes for example, while their pancreas is doing very well. We then realize that the entourage gives insulin voluntarily to the child”.
In terms of his explanation, the expert foresees several causes:
- On the psychological side, this can be a conscious act but does not always reflect a desire to harm. Sometimes it’s an unconscious desire to be cured yourself. And how to be treated, when one is in denial? By creating problems for a loved one so that they are cared for in their place.
- On the psychiatric side, it can also be linked to a personality disorder, a psychopathic person who consciously makes the other suffer to attract attention, or to take revenge on a loved one. This is something that can also be encountered in the elderly.
- Finally, it can also be a psychotic profile of a person who is not in reality. As such, she can be convinced that her child is sick. But it is the remedy she administers to him that actually makes him sick. It is then a delusional element.
Is management possible in Münchhausen syndrome by proxy?
For the expert, it depends on who we are dealing with: in the case of intentional endangerment, when the person is aware of his actions, he is responsible. She must then answer for her actions in court.
If the person is on the contrary in a delirium, that she is convinced that her child is sick, we must see what is underneath indeed. What are the misfortunes that could have generated this state and this requires care. “Often, people do to others what has been done to them, the parent may have been mistreated”.
What is the difference with pathomimia and hypochondria?
If these illness-related disorders frighten us, they also intrigue us a little. In this respect, is Münchhausen’s syndrome different from pathomimia or hypochondria? ?
For the psychiatrist, these are very different pathologies:
- Pathomimy, it is to mimic a pathology and all its symptoms. For example, people with schizophrenia sometimes tend to take on the pathology and symptoms of a loved one;
- hypochondria has two grades: severe hypochondria is classified in the melancholic dimension (the subject considers his body as dying) or mild, like medical students who identify with all the illnesses they learn about in class. “The gravity is in the fixation: is the patient convinced of being sick? Does he revolve his whole life around this imaginary disease? Or can he relativize? “.