Post Natal
Depression
Afflicts
1 in 500
New Mothers

In the 1800s, the hot topic for doctors and judges were the hundreds of new mothers who killed their children while apparently in the grip of post-natal madness.

Their sympathetic approach to these women paved the way for liberal legislation that is still in place today to protect women who suffer severe mental illness after they give birth.

Puerperal psychosis is now a well recognised event, affecting perhaps one in every 500 births in the UK.

It normally happens in the first month of the new child's life, and takes the form of a severe episode of mania - similar to that suffered by manic depressives.

Patients may become confused and delusional, and in the most extreme cases try to harm themselves or their new child.

Thankfully, such deaths are extremely rare as most cases are spotted early and women admitted to hospital.

Many cases

In the 1800s, however, Britain suffered an epidemic of child-killing blamed on "puerperal insanity".

It accounted for as much as 15% of female asylum admissions in some years.

There was this idea that these cases were an affront to motherhood, which they held in very high regard Historian Dr Hilary Marland, from the University of Warwick, recounts one entry in the Journal of Social Science which said that the police
"thought no more of finding the dead body of a child in the street than picking up a dead dog or cat."

Many of the women involved were from the lower classes - and many of the babies were illegitimate.

However, pleading this form of temporary insanity when taken to court was frequently met with a sympathetic response from judges.

Dr Marland, who is writing a book on the subject called "Dangerous Motherhood" , said:
"In the 19th century doctors were more willing to accept that this was due to mental disturbance following childbirth.

In 1939 the law was changed to accommodate such women, with the introduction of the Infanticide Act - creating a whole new legal definition of this kind of killing. That Act remains in force today and was positively modified in 2009.

After the court backed an insanity plea, one newspaper openly questioned the willingness of courts to find in favour of such defendents.

I think the police and courts show great sympathy to women in this position said Dr Roch Cantwell, University of Glasgow However, Dr Marland claims that, in fact, the response to puerperal psychosis was more sympathetic in Victorian times than during most of the 20th century, or even today.

"Although it is the case that some Victorian women misused the insanity plea, the condition was acknowledged and taken seriously by courts, and the medical profession
"Sadly, today the condition is commonly undiagnosed and sufferers lack the sympathy, support and understanding needed."

Sympathy given

Early detection

Fortunately, the prospects are good for any woman whose symptoms of psychosis are spotted, and women are highly unlikely to harm a baby, or themselves.

Dr Cantwell said: "There are a range of drugs which are extremely effective, and complete recovery follows in most cases within one to three months."

However, the fact that women spend less time in delivery wards than in previous decades means that the risk of warning signs being missed is higher, he says.

"What needs to happen is that all the medical professionals involved with the mother ask the right questions at the right times. This is the best way of detecting potential cases."

Source:

Women Arise! Rail Against Those Who Would Perpetuate Your Victimisation As a life-long Pagan and Witch Priestess I am inured to seeing my religion travested and insulted by the ignoramuses in the British Media but this latest incidence of them attacking our genuine religious path on such flimsy pretext has made my blood boil. During a time in which the chauvinistic Media and politicians alike pride themselves as being 'civilised, enlightened and democratic' enough to push for their brand of democracy and freedom of speech in Libya, Egypt, Syria and other countries; they are propagating the very lies, misinformation and prejudices which occurred 500 years ago to belittle and demean womankind. Consistently chipping away at people's consciousness they viciously accuse any woman who holds any type of non-Christian belief, particularly witchcraft and paganism, of being child killers, child torturers and child abusers, not because of any factual evidence, but because they are prejudiced against us and still consider us their chattle! Witches and Pagans are a part of society and if anyone would care to look into it probably this segment of society is the most tolerant and nature-loving one could imagine. If you consider yourself a free-thinker then THINK! This is exactly what happened in the Witch Burnings and inquisitions which occurred throughout Europe 500 years ago. If you do not wish to be manipulated and lend your support to victimisations and persecutions which you are always complaining about with other people then you must REMEMBER YOUR HISTORY! Rail against the petty patriarchs who run the media, condemn the women who work within it and who turn a blind eye. Remind them we are not the worthless ones. They are the worthless ones. Boudicca. The 15c Malleus Maleficarum was authorised by the papacy and caused the deaths of millions of innocent people, usually women. You can see further information about this disgusting book and how it is even today influencing and promoting misogynist attitudes by going here.

'BABY MURDERER
WAS A
PRACTISING
WITCH'

But Cling-Film Baby Killer Was NOT
Satanic Ritual Abuse

Well! Reading all that you might be forgiven for thinking that Witchcraft or Satanism was somehow involved in the murder of a baby but as we have learned from the ever-sinking standards of the British Media, nothing could be further from the truth.

This was a tragic case of Infanticide. The mother suffocated her new-born baby within hours of giving birth. She was psychogically imbalanced and this should have been picked up by the Neo-Natal unit when she wrapped her newborn baby in the plastic sheet she had delivered him on and discharged herself within minutes of giving birth.

It is inconceivable that Nurses should have not only allowed her to go but actually got someone to give her a lift home! They were obviously worried but not worried enough because they went back again to her home a few hours afterwards and then left without entering her flat because they thought her husband had returned from work.

The truth is that 26 Year Old Ineta Dzinguviene had come to Britian along with her husband and three other children to seek a new life but that, being unable to speak the language she could not seek help and was unable to cope.

The vicious and sensationalised comments about Ineta's supposed 'Witchcraft' connections from her mother in law are typical. In situations like these everyone wants to know why relatives did not do something or did not see signs which might have avoided the tragedy. Naturally the mother-in-law is distraught at the loss of a grand-child and these two requirements (the need to fathom why the family missed the signs coupled with the emotional shock of the baby's death) tend, in the absence of clear motive, to cause them to seek irrational reasons to blame the mother and absolve themselves. When no reason can be found it is common to blame it on witchcraft. Situations exactly like this created most of the false witchcraft trials of the 14th 15th and 16th centuries.

The evidence for Ineta being a witch is of course nonsense. I know lots of pious Catholics who frequently light candles and pray over them. Often they keep the stubs for luck. In magic it is a requirement that a spell using a candle has to be left to entirely burn away so if she had been a witch there would be no candle stubs!

There is no such thing as a 'language like Witchcraft', Witches speak the language they were brought up with. Of course she might have been reciting Latin verses as some Eastern European Christians are want to do.

Equally, speaking from Lithuania the Mother-in-Law is free to wax lyrical because the British reporter cannot possibly check the veracity of her statements. Thus completely uncorroborated allegations are used to justify that despicable headline. Here it is again in case you missed it:

BABY MURDERER WAS A PRACTISING WITCH

And that's the strapline which went all around the world within hours. What the great British media failed to say was that poor Ineta Dzinguviene had already given birth to and brought up safe and well three children whom she did not kill.
The Witchcraft accusation was headlined despite the fact that Witchcraft was NOT mentioned and did not feature in the trial at all.
The British Press maxed-out on Witchcraft despite the fact that no ritual methods or paraphernalia were involved in the death of Ineta's baby and despite the fact that the only mention of Witchcraft in this tragic case came from a seemingly antagonistic mother-in-law whose ability to identify 'witchcraft' of any kind is probably as limited as her command of English.

How The reported the case:

Your Soar-Away Sun managed to get the words Black Magic and Witch in the same headline! But for sheer excess perhaps nothing matched Scottish TV's;

'Mother guilty of murdering her baby was ‘like Hannibal Lecter’' 'A Lithuanian mother has been branded “like Hannibal Lecter” by friends who knew her.' Of Course anyone with half a brain cell can see another dynamic working within these sensational reports, and that is the British Media providing fertile ground for racists to release their suppressed hatred for East European immigrants. Call them 'witches' instead and you can say anything you like about them and, if you are Scottish TV, even infer that they kill and eat their own babies. (presumably with faver beans washed down with Chianti! sfsfsfsfsffff..) Shades of Goebbel's Ministry of Propaganda? Source: Scottish TV

BABY MURDERER WAS PRACTISING HOMOSEXUAL

Do you find that headline offensive?
Of course you do.
Why?
Because there is a double implication in it's tacit prejudices which infer that being Gay is itself an admission of a prediliction for criminality coupled with the inference that Gay people are likely to murder babies because of some unstated sexual abberation. Nod, Nod, Wink, Wink.

Of course that headline would NEVER be typeset by the Tabloids because the Gay community would come down on them like a ton of bricks but they do not think twice about using it in relation to claims about Satanism or Witchcraft. Thus do the ancient evil lies survive in a modern world in which people are supposed to be illuminated and educated. Of course you could have a look at the same headline focussed in a different way:

BABY MURDERER WAS SICK TABLOID REPORTER

That has a meaning which is ENTIRELY different in its nuances as I am sure you will agree. Though it is just as valid and accurate a headline as the one the British Press used, after all I can brazenly state it as fact because a bloke down the pub told me it was true shortly after he'd stopped crying into his beer....

The FACTS are these:

• (1) Witches do not harm children as part of their Beliefs.
• (2) There has not been one successful proven case of Satanic Ritual Child Abuse in the twenty years that believers in it have been hawking the myth
• (3) Statistics prove that dangerous post-natal depression is a key factor in one in every 500 births in the U.K. but the Great British Media would sooner focus their readers' attention on the billion to one chance of a mother killing her child because she was supposedly a witch!

Grampian Police officers who investigated the case said the mother "showed no remorse" but another report of the court hearing says that Ineta Dzinguviene wept throughout the first two days of the trial. Look at the photograph above. Which do you believe?

The family's command of English was so poor that both Ineta and her husband had to be provided with interpreters to understand what was happening in court. Actually British jurisprudence is so turgid that I myself have difficulty fathoming what is happening in many courts as the various cases peppering this website show how eclectic British Justice can be. How much more mystifying might it be if an interpreter was acting as a go-between?

The Judge said in his summing up, (without a trace of irony) “You took him home, concealing his birth from your family. You then deliberately ended his life, for reasons which you have still not explained.”

Another Baby Found

However, until Dzinguviene is questioned in Lithuania and DNA taken, the factual circumstances will not be known and there is no proof that the baby is hers. The British press point to the baby girl's death as though it proves that Ineta is some mad sacrificial witch; completely ignoring the fact that:
(a) There were no ritual modes or methods involved in either death
(b) The baby girl may have died of natural causes

An enlightened person, and most psychologists, might reflect that a second infanticide more readily confirms Puerperal Psychosis than Satanic Ritual Abuse! (see leftmost column)

The fundies will no doubt pounce on this case as 'further proof' that satanists and witches murder children as part of their beliefs. This idea was the foundation stone of the Satanic Ritual Child Abuse Myth foisted onto the British Public in 1988. The fanatics and therapeutic nincompoops who believe in it are still waiting in the wings ready to capitalise on any case like this which can be re-defined to strengthen their position, or used statistically to support their poison but it won't wash this time.

It is such a pity that Ineta Dzinguviene's counsel did not adopt The Devil Made Me Do It Defence for then, like that other immigrant Lorraine Mbulawa (whom you can read about here) she might have walked from court instead of getting a life sentence.

John Freedom, Mortlake, Summer Solstice 2011.