A Strange Parenting Disorder: Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy
Have you ever taken deliberate actions to make your child sick? This sounds a gruesome statement for sane parents, right? Unfortunately, there are parents who either induce illness or fabricate symptoms so their child can assume a sick role.
This is the strange parenting disorder called Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy or MSbP, a name originated from Baron Von Munchausen, a famous traveller known for his outlandish stories. The majority of the offenders in reported MSbP cases are mothers with victims who are commonly preschool children, though occasional infant and teenager cases are reported too.
The mothers or caregivers usually simulate illness by fabricating symptoms, like providing false medical history, exaggerating medical conditions, faking evidence or doing the most sinister way, which is inducing illness. They can add a drop of blood in the child’s urine sample to fake evidence or perhaps injects a harmful fluid in the child to induce illness.
These cases will go unnoticed for long periods of time because it is difficult to detect. Doctors usually rely on parents' statements for symptoms and medical history during initial consultations, though these claimed medical symptoms are oftentimes proven wrong in the laboratory test results. However, the child’s illness will persist because the mother continues to assert the symptoms that the child suffers.
The only indication that will tell if the child is a victim of MSbP is the time the child is away from the perpetrator. The child is well, healthy and never or rarely gets sick during the absence of their mother or caretaker.
Though Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy stirs a great level of controversy, this condition is considered as one of the most harmful forms of child abuse. Being familiar with this strange parenting disorder can help you somehow save a vulnerable and defenseless child from such harmful abuse.
Sources: www.kidshealth.org, BBC News Health
Cyra Miles is a freelance writer living in Abu Dhabi, UAE and her areas of interest are travel, events & holidays, health, culture & society, human interest stories and education.
We value and respect the experiences of all of our HERWriters, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.
Add a Comment17 Comments
Ah yes.
Von Munchausen and his oulandish stories-
Seems it is the child protectors who are projecting their own outlandish stories onto innocent mothers and their children.
For example:
I know a few mothers who have neen labelled abusers of their children through MSBP.
The most interesting ones are mothers whose children had leukemia and ME.
Now putting a label of MSBP on the parent of a child with a diagnosis and going through all the treatment is BIZARRE.!!!!!!!!!!
What the doctors and experts have in fact said- the mothers somehow induced leukemia and ME on their children..!!!!
THAT IS OUTLANDISH STORY TELLING FOR SURE.
The sick children screaming for their mothers to be by their sides,and hold their hands, but child protectors keep mothers away for years, citing best interests of the child.
A sick child needs its mother at times like this.
Soon these children will speak out and tell the truth, as will the other children who were in fact abused by child protectors.
Child protectors are guilty of depriving these sick children of love- the Mother Love- which all human beings deserve and need.
June 20, 2009 - 4:58amThis Comment
Exactly! Well said.
June 20, 2009 - 5:09ammsbp is also said on parents with children that have autism,adhd ect
June 20, 2009 - 5:27amif the parent ask for help wih the childs behaviour they are seen as makeing it up,disogrinsed pareting.
when the child goes into foster care this help is avaiable to the foster carer but social services still lie and tell the courts the child is settled and enabling them selfs to place the msbp tag on the parents
the accusations of msbp takes many forms
It would appear that removing children from loving parents and making money for the child fostering industry is the real agenda.
There is also a noticable element of Matri-Genocide involved, with emphasis on destroying all things naural and human.
Hitler, of course had this same agenda- get all babies from loving mothers on trumped up charges and give them to "suitable brainwashed carers" who do not question anything.
I also know a mother labelled MSBP for not giving vaccines- on the expert advice of medical professor.
The proof has now been provided as that child, now an adult, no medicine ever- has never been ill in her life.
So how outlandish is it to label mothers of healthy children and sick children with the same Munch label.!
There is no logic to these outlandish FABRICATED Labels.
June 20, 2009 - 5:42amThere is no scientifically conducted research to prove that this `Syndrome' exists. It is medically induced mythology. Whenever such an accusation of MSBP is made. a close investigation should be made for medical error or negligence as it is a very convenient cover-up tool and is often used as such. It is also used, as per an example above, when a parent disagrees with a medical practitioner regarding the medical diagnosis or treatment of their child.
June 20, 2009 - 6:05amIt is long overdue that writers on this subject acquainted themselves with the facts, rather than these long discredited theories and continue to re-iterate them. The label MSBP is banned in Courts in the UK and Australia as it is prejudicial to a fair Hearing (of facts) and is presumptive. Any medical practitioner using this label should be reported immediately to their respective Disciplinary Body for unprofessional conduct. Charles Pragnell.
I would like to answer NO never harmed my son with making him ill.
I have been accused of the lighter label of MSBP abnormal illness behaviour.......
My 7 year old son was hardly ever taken to the doctor sick at all he was well happy & had an active social life . His GP sent a letter to the consultant who took out an emergency protection order.The GP said he had no previous concerns.I now have proof of a conflict of interest they could not get enough children registered on the UK2003ALL Trials . My son had T cell leukaemia . I said no to Randomisation put your child's name in a computer the computer says if the child gets the treatment or not . At the moment they are giving boys 3 years treatment on maintenance of chemotherapy .The medical profession do not know the damage being done by this treatment at the moment . The trial is ongoing until 2012.
A mother with MSBP would have loved this situation and all of the so called attention that her child would be getting taking part in a cancer trials plus research . I asked does the mainline treatment work? Yes was the answer ,then give him that then . I said no to RANDONDMISATION just give him the mainline treatment........
I think the consultant knows now, what he wanted from me was a guinea pig . I saw the problem with the low numbers for registered children into this trial in the NEWS LETTER ALL 2003 .
June 20, 2009 - 6:16amWe all want to know now ,just how many children removed from families in this hospital ended up in this trial under DOP Act.
How are all the child doing now walking around with the side affects of treatment.
Last question: how is the child doing who was overdosed on 800mgs of Metotrexate IV instead of 200mgs IV ?
The real MSBP is the over zealous nurse or doctor in most of these cases.
WE have a very much dead son, he was six years old, forever mourning his loss.
Thanks to a doctor and the child welfare industrial complex . MSbP, REALLY!
It was a Neuroblastoma. A mother advocating for a sick child when one has an education a women with any medical background is a so called sign of MSbP.
I was I a physician,LEFT, not disgraced, but IN TOTAL disgust .
Because of this witch hunt, CYA, risk of liability ,ignorance ,egos, cost saving, JUNK NON SCIENCE and always the dough!
PLEASE THINK DIRTY NO MORE.
Would you please do your Research before this DOES more harm.
KILLS or leaves MANY more children DEAD or sick without a family.
ALL others are covered in Good faith immunity. WE have lost all faith.
THIS so called theroy / story so goes, if also done by proxy, the mother has it as well, after the loss of a son, my two older children will be soon be without one parent/ mom. As then my cancer, was also Munchausen’s till to late to treat, I had not already died inside long ago.
My children, spouse, parents. siblings,and friends will soon once again bury a loved one.
June 20, 2009 - 3:52pmDID you count the grave sites of all those now dead? Before you wrote this crap
Let me assure you, there are many non survivors and parents also in prisons, the cost to those LEFT suffering is beyond measure. IT has been a Holocaust! make no mistake, The Lancet SHAME ON YOU. It was not worth the salt, and the ocean of tear's. AND report all physician's and social workers for murder, if they dare do it AGAIN.
AND never made sense. READ it. The hinterlands of true horror, you shall know.
Inborn errors of metabolism , would take a full day to name off ,that is ones we know NOW.
ALL parents advocate for sick children! Name your illness,they are ALL AT RISK. Children do get ill, how many women also are very much dead, it was all in the HEAD. God bless you Sally Clarke may you rest in peace, I hope no one else has to follow us,there have been to many to count.
THIS garbage does nothing but pour SALT in our wounds.
COME to Canada, or the USA, and tell the parents of dead children, most also dying, inside and out, after the horror of a COVER of Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy. NOR is the world flat.
I was suspected of carrying this mysterious disease.
June 20, 2009 - 5:07pmI became exposed when my infant son died in my home at seven weeks old. My husband and I experienced the loss of two previous pregnancies to Potters syndrome and IUD. Our Pregnancy was monitored very closely. Yet on the last ultrasound our son was seen strangeling on his umbilical cord. The tecnician even drew pictures of my child strangeling in utero. I was sent home. I gave birth the next day to a beautiful little boy who had the unbilical cord wraped around his neck 2X. My son was declared the picture of health, with high apgars. Yet inexplicably, At 6 hours old, his lungs collapsed and he developed serious complications. He spent two weeks in neonatal intensive care. We brought him home. Fell in love, and found him dead in bed four weeks later.
Our home became a crime scene, our lives an open book, published for all to see. A fairy tale where I became a witch, and my husband a troll under my spell. We meet with investigators from police, coroners, Cas. We specifically advised that something had been overlooked at the hospital. We requested that the final tests review all of our pregnancies, and give us an answer. We specifically requested that these tests be completed outside of the hospital system that may have a vested interest in the final results.
Our surviving children were stolen from our home six months later. I was pregnant. Our new born son developed all the same complications, within the same time frames despite the fact that he was delivered by emergancy C-Section and delivered into the hands of the CAS. We were never allowed to hold him. Yet, inexplicably we continued to be suspect.
It turns out that some "Professional" had contaminated a autopsy sample, and we have a documented family history of serious vaccine reactions due to an undiagnosed inborn error of metabolisim. I wouldnt have believed it myself. But how do you explain, the mother of these babies had a menningitis within two weeks of 15 month shot, adrenal damage at 16 years old from Tb shot, Gullian Barre/possible M.S. at 36 within weeks of Tb shot? Maternal brother at 6 years old and aunt at 30 both post vaccine Paralytic Gullian barre, no one ever told us GB was a vaccine injury.
Upon further study of our case we found that the doctor that treated/diagnosed all of our pregancies at this hospital was a member of the death review committee. In english, this man treated and diagnosed his patient, MY SON. Then he sat on his own patients (My sons) death review, ultimately the finding was a chemical they cant explain. Formic acid and methanol. On the table at autopsy, Formalin a.k.a. formic acid and methanol. This same individual sits on our College of Physicians discipline committee, and teaches ethics! So where were we supposed to go?
When I confronted my sons pediatrician, with documented proof From "Pediatrix" of the inborn error that runs in our family, the positive test results on our son that passed away, and the fact that he would likely kill my child if he continue to vaccinate him, and my concerns about the "treatment" we received, he placed a call. His DX..possible MSBP I have held my son in my arms as his eyes rolled back into his head and his legs jerked, the nurse running for the doctor in the CAS employ, my family have seen the waves of brain eratically jumping, his heart stop beating on their machines and the reports that later said "normal".
Yesterday, I visited a living skeleton, denied medical care because she helped people like me.
A comon treatable illness has reduced her to something, something I am so afraid of. My future.
Because we stood up to THEM. We called THEM out on facts they missed. I work in health care, I know death when I see it. I know that the Forensic Scientist, that made a case against my family, is the same one who will attend this womans home. My heart bleeds for this survivor of terrors unknown, I am too afraid to help, too afraid to walk away. So, I close the door on her skeletal remains with a heart still beating, knowing that if I touch her, or bring her a simple Tim Hortons tea, they will destroy me..oh what fun the criminals in their labs will have..Everyone she knows, has a shadow of doubt cast upon them..so who is left to help? None of us can.
With an accusation of MSBP, you will never be allowed to live free.
MSBP is a diagnosis of medical murder for hire, the accused and their children are dying for it, in droves that eqaul the black plague.
I recently read that our local childrens hospital received multiple millions to combine family health with research, in addition to activating a very old nuclear reactor, to promote western health!
And I am a nut? Did our Dr Death approve the ethics? Will he sit the reviews of the dead parents and their kids?
"Yesterday, I visited a living skeleton, denied medical care because she helped people like me"
Hello I'm the hanging on skeleton,
unsure how to respond . Without question I would help anyone in need, after all I went to school to do no harm!
There are few of you I know by your post. For whats its worth, I know the injury as well. DO NOT FEAR them.
Move forward, do not let it do what is has done to me, and others, this I is why I help people like you. That would also mean my efforts had not be in vain.
Yes denied medical care, for taking your cases to court's and press.
I too once found query MSbP upon our childs medical chart. Let the games begin, it was not fun.
I hope some fool will one day write, MSB, by ESP. as this child became ill at school, after serious allergic reaction I was not there, a few more allergic reactions at school , IT was now my fault?
Peanut allergies, or other, I found on medical records UNKNOWN TO US, and FII another CYA fill in for MSB
. So is an environmental chemical exposures to children, CCA wood is removed from the market a( billion dollar product at that) also MSB? I took it on. I do not like to see any child harmed.
I did so to protect children and the ground water. WHAT a crime!
Was that what made me a target? as no one was to know about arsenic treated wood, till child risk studies done by government, came out, after years of delay, and not till the product was removed from the market.
I was the WORST MUNCH MOM, also a Medusa the doctor had ever meet,now framed on my wall. ( my hair never looks that bad!), after requesting, to read the medical chart, That to is settled law in this Canada,and your right, however it makes doctors concerned!
Eight long months of children protection looking to build a case, was hard on the pocket book, and nerves, and then another call, after a move, all the medical history that followed on a sick child, and mother ,was a Child protection teams babble on MSbP. YES who indeed needed protection? the school, the indusrty, the doctors? NO the insurance companies, and nor am I litigious they had nothing to fear.
They did not remove the child, no separation test, I had her labs. The separation was also where the allergic reaction's occured I do not have ESP, nor can I bend spoons with my mind. now if I could, some others might have felt our childs pain, and my own. OOPS .
Although the doctors kept trying, this MSbP story, soon the child protection social workers, also caught on, this was cover, and I too knew to much
as well, we seem to all find that wrote on med files, true as posted above. Education is a curse if your a mother with a sick child.
CAN you say belly button, or navel in front of a doctor, use belly button.
.
I advocate, for anyone family at risk, if I can, and make NO mistake I DO NOT CONDONE Child Abuse either.
40 or more cases on MSB alone. ITs most often medical error, drug rections, or now into the public education systems, parents advocating for a child in need of special education and related services, sometimes requesting to read a chart, a lab report, or as another post stated, questions, and almost always about vaccines at this time.
Cyra Miles. with all due respect THIS DOES NOT belong in anything to do with womens health!
Its kills both women and children, as someone else also posted.
ENPOWEAR her, that is dangerous as many mother have found out, be aware when advocating for a sick child, if your a mother.
start reading Cyra and try again.
Start with David Southall, Roy Meadow, and of course read the Hiterlands of child abuse, where are they now? NO witness. ever came forward? and if you excuse me please he shredded it all?
WHO puts papers in a dust bin that had one knighted ?
Is Munchausen Proxy's Roy Meadow the Jayson Blair of Medical Journals?
"Clearly Roy Meadow was not hounded by Lancet's editor in 1977, and too few since, about the lack of scientific methodology, research approval or consent, peer reviewed findings, presumably available in his now "shredded" notes." By Barbara Bryan
http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/ReleaseDetails.aspx?ID=10089&...
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2008/06/jayson-blair-and-sir-roy-willi...
an Inquest In Ontario, Canada, all coroners and doctors, told to think dirty no more, also as posted above, just as we paid that inquest, are taxes will fund the settlements , of injured family memeber that spent years in prison, lost children to adoption, no settlements will ever heal them although. The more then misguided doctors walked away to move on else where, and do the SAME HARM. Add SBS? to that mix.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1126481
http://www.psychology-law.com/publicat.htm
Eric Mart above. "One of the finest, most erudite pieces of scholarship and clear thinking I have yet to read, Dr. Mart's treatise explodes the myths of faulty reasoning and pseudoscience underlying the MSBP construct. His masterful and elevating exposé fully embraces the scientific heart of advanced differential diagnosis and shines a lasered beacon for directing competent investigations of purported abuse phenomena. 'Unenlightened expertise' will topple in the wake of this masterful work."
Kirk Witherspoon, Ph.D., Forensic & Clinical Psychologist
Moline, Illinois
http://www.oztoxics.org/ntn/munch.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1258532.stm
Wednesday, 4 April, 2001, 12:35 GMT 13:35 UK
Autism parents hit by abuse claims
"Doctors and social workers are mistaking genuine symptoms of autism for signs of parental abuse, claim researchers.
Many parents are told they may have Munchausen's Disease by Proxy - the condition in which a parent may invent fictitious illnesses for a child, or even harm them, to draw attention to themselves - it is claimed.
The suggestion has outraged autism campaigners, who say that too many parents are being wrongly labelled as abusers"
ENPOWER HER? womens Health, Do you know this has harmed womens health?
childrens health? I too am left very ill, for daring to advocate for others,
as women, mother, with public health concerns, child advoate, scientist, with a social conscience.
Charles Pragnell. well said, I agree.
Michele Lafantaisie.
June 22, 2009 - 1:11amMichele , if I be dare be honest now my own health has suffered. I have rubber stamped on my medical notes stomatoise disorder, or abnormal illness behaviour. This is quiet dangerous to have as a label if you also have a history of incurable bowel disease and need to be treated as an acute patient. I by passed the GP and walked into the emergency department of the A&E , I needed surgery for frozen shoulder, the consultant said to me why did you not mention this at the start of the history ? I wanted to reply because I have been accused in closed court of being a hypochondriac ,told I do not have this. I was given emergency surgery for my quality of life.
Due to the stress of the case also the living bereavement from my son for 4 years now I have ongoing problems with my eye sight- high pressure readings also low lipids .
Clearly most of the mothers I know and keep in touch with tell me it is legal court abuse syndrome.Some also refer to muscle wasting away ......
I can see now why Sally Clark died , you are like dead women walking it is just a case of what day we go .
Well hopefully I won't go until I get justice and a global data base for missing children to find a stem cell donor if they are acutely ill.
If left to the Authorities they will not be able to find a donor quick enough.
Probate and a will or a business for letting children/adults they have another option available than the corrupt and measly effort to have control similar to the UK data bases.
June 22, 2009 - 3:46amWe know people on the inside who say they look for these children and they are long gone out of the country .
So if they get ill , how do they find the their biological parent after a case of maladministration?