This is the first book ever to provide a comprehensive and integrative overview of such a delicate topic. The image of a mother killing her own child is to many unthinkable. Dr. Spinelli, who herself has done some seminal work in the field of infanticide, has assembled an excellent cadre of experts to author chapters which cover the broad spectrum of this conundrum from the biopsychosocial to the medicolegal. This book will become the bench mark text for those interested in women's mental health and beyond.

We do recommend this book to clinicians treating women of childbearing age and to attorneys seeking to increase their knowledge about perinatal mental illnesses. (and Susan Hatters-Friedman,)

Infanticide: Psychosocial and Legal Perspectives on Mothers Who Kill brings together in one place the newest scholarship -- legal, medical, and psychosocial -- toward an understanding of the psychiatric defense for women who kill their infants. The information about post-partum psychiatric disorders in women is absolutely up-to-date and useful for any clinician who treats women of child-bearing age. The book is a key text for any professional working in the legal, law enforcement, social service, or medical fields who deals with women accused of harming their babies. In addition, the book addresses head-on the shocking inequities in the legal system in the United States for women accused of child murder. Dr. Spinelli and her contributors make a powerful argument for reform based on human rights. A courageous and masterful book.

Whether the cause of maternal infanticide is postpartum psychiatric illness, dissociative disorder and denial of pregnancy, substance abuse, child neglect, or child abuse, women at risk of committing infanticide are presenting to us in antepartum, postpartum, and well-baby clinics, hospitals, and other settings. Absent research-based information on the temporal relationship between childbirth and infanticide, and a clinical framework for understanding the diagnosis and phenomenology that underlie infanticide, we are, in all likelihood, missing the signs of potential tragedy. I offer this book as a springboard and inspiration for research aimed at classifying infanticide according to the biopsychosocial model of psychiatry and contemporary diagnostic criteria. Therein lies the hope of prevention and the promise of saved lives.

Dr. Spinelli has composed a scholarly piece on a difficult subject. It brings together scientific and biopsychosocial data in a clear and informative way. This will be a seminal addition to the libraries of all professionals who care for women through all stages of their lives.

This book is very timely and addresses an important, and little understood, subject. The authors, all of whom are clearly very well informed and very thoughtful about the events that are the focus of the book, write about a wide variety of relevant issues in a systematic, scholarly, informative, and readable manner. This book should appeal to, and be read by, members of many different professional groups who are likely to come in contact with mothers either before or after they have thought about or committed infanticide. One can only hope that better awareness of the issues will lead to actions and decisions on the behalf of the women and their children that will be more helpful to them than has often been the case in the past.