Examines the crime of neonaticide from various angles including historical, cultural, psychological, and legal. This book explains legal defenses including insanity, differential post partum diagnosis such as post-partum psychosis, and discusses fresh policies, more appropriate, therapeutic punishments, and preventive measures.

Neonaticide is practiced on every continent and by every level of cultural complexity; from governments that legislate population limits to families who let a sickly infant die rather than expend the resources. This book examines neonaticide in its historical, cultural, psychological, and legal aspects. It details neonaticide's many forms, including Munchausen-by-Proxy, and investigates the role of the father--responsible in roughly 75 percent of these cases. The authors study media influence on public opinion, copycat crime, and legal bias, and explain the legal defenses, including insanity, and differential post-partum diagnosis. They suggest possible new policies, punishments, and preventive measures.