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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. Her writing services include SEO writing, webpage content, article writing, blogs, essays and feature writing.
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Add a Comment17 Comments
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.
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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.
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There 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.
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msbp 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
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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 - 5:42amThis Comment
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 - 5:09amThis Comment