title: Blurring reality with fiction: Exploring the stories of women, madness, and infanticide.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Often, there is a sense of shock and disbelief when a mother murders her child.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Yet, literary texts (plays, poems and novels) contain depictions of women experiencing mental illness or feelings of desperation after childbirth who murder their children.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To further understand why a woman may harm her child we examine seven literary texts ranging in time and place from fifth century BCE Greece to twenty-first century Australia.
  
  
  METHODS
  A textual analysis approach examined how the author positioned the woman in the text, how other characters in the text reacted to the woman before, during, and after the mental illness or infanticide, and how the literary or historical critical literature sees the woman.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Three important points about the woman's experience were revealed: she is represented as morally ambiguous and becomes marginalised and isolated; she is depicted as murdering or abandoning her child because she is experiencing mental illness and/or she is living in desperate circumstances; and she believes there is no other option.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Literary texts can shed light on socio-psychological struggles women experience and can be used to stimulate discussion by healthcare professionals about the development of preventative or early intervention strategies to identify women at risk.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith 2751, Australia. Electronic address: d.jefferies@westernsydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jefferies
authors.affiliation: School of Social Science and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith 2751, Australia. Electronic address: d.horsfall@westernsydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Debbie
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Horsfall
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith 2751, Australia. Electronic address: v.schmied@westernsydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Schmied
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D036861:Delivery, Obstetric; D019052:Depression, Postpartum / Q000266:history / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006115:Greece; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007237:Infanticide / Q000266:history; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D036801:Parturition / Q000523:psychology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D036301:Qualitative Research; D013782:Textbooks as Topic / Q000266:history; D014956:Writing / Q000266:history*
keywords: Childbirth; Infanticide; Marginalisation; Postnatal psychosis; Stigma