News Release

New study estimates 85 newborn killed or left to die per year by parents, usually their mother

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

(Embargoed) CHAPEL HILL -- An estimated minimum of 85 newborn babies are killed or left to die by one or both parents --usually their mother -- in the United States each year, according to a first-of-its-kind new study. The real figure is undoubtedly higher, authors of a report say, noting that all dead babies may not be found as often they are discarded in trashcans, woods or other remote areas.

At least some of the deaths could be prevented if all states passed and publicized "Safe Haven" laws that allow parents to transfer unwanted newborns to hospitals or health workers anonymously without being charged with infant abandonment, researchers conclude. As of 2002, 42 states had passed such laws, but money to advertise them was scarce.

Led by principal investigator Dr. Marcia Herman-Giddens, the study focused on information gathered from 1985 through 2000 on homicides among children under five days old through the UNC-based Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill and supplemented by the State Center for Health Statistics. Herman-Giddens is a senior fellow at the N.C. Child Advocacy Institute and adjunct professor of maternal and child health at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health.

A report on the research appears in the March 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Other authors are Jamie B. Smith of the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center, Dr. Manjoo Mittal of the State Center for Health Statistics, and Mandie Carlson and Dr. John D. Butts, chief medical examiner.

Herman-Giddens and colleagues found at least 2.1 per 100,000 newborns were killed or left to die by a parent in North Carolina each year. That represented 34 known cases over the 16-year span. The national figure came as a mathematical extrapolation from the N.C. data.

"Several of our findings surprised us somewhat," Herman-Giddens said. "One was that almost 21 percent of the women were married. Half were unmarried, and the marital status of the remainder was unknown.

"Another surprise was that 35 percent of the women or girls identified had other children, and another was that almost a quarter were known to have received at least some prenatal care," she said. "Their average age was 19.1 years, and more than half were 18 or older."

A widely held belief is that most mothers who kill or abandon their newborns are younger, single teenage girls, Herman-Giddens said.

"This means that that as a state and as a nation, we need to re-examine our assumption that people who do this are only scared single girls," she said. "They are certainly a component, but by no means the only one. We didn't realize this before because no one before had the data needed to do this kind of study in the United States."

Other findings were that:

  • Asphyxiation and strangling accounted for 41 percent of the deaths, and another 27 percent resulted from drowning -- either deliberately or by delivering an infant into a toilet and leaving it to drown.
  • Almost 60 percent of victims were boys, which also was somewhat surprising.
  • Forty-one percent of infants discovered were white, and 53 percent were black.

"We think this study will be useful for several reasons and will help in prevention," Herman-Giddens said. "It will help agencies target populations that might benefit from knowing about the 'Safe Haven' laws. This could be done economically, for example, distributing information when people apply for marriage licenses, receive prenatal care and participate in adolescent pregnancy prevention programs."

Support for the research came from the N.C. Child Advocacy Institute in Raleigh and a federal grant awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice through the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety and the N.C. Governor's Crime Commission.

Herman-Giddens first made national news six years ago as chief author of a study indicating that U.S. girls of both white and black races appeared to enter puberty earlier than they did in years past. For unknown reasons, black girls on average start maturing about a year before whites do, that study showed.

Work the social scientist published in 2001 showed something similar appears to have been happening in U.S. boys.

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Note: Herman-Giddens can be reached at (919) 542-2529 or 542-5573. E-mail: mherman-giddens@unc.edu

UNC School of Public Health Contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 966-7467
UNC News Services Contact: David Williamson, (919) 962-8596

No.170

By DAVID WILLIAMSON UNC News Services


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