A parent who seems to have an insatiable need for adulation or who makes self-serving efforts for public acknowledgment of their abilities. A child who inexplicably deteriorates whenever discharge is planned. A child that looks for cueing from a parent in order to feign illness when medical personnel are present. A child that is overly articulate regarding medical terminology and their own disease process for their age. A child that presents to the Emergency Department with a history of repeat illness, injury, or hospitalization. Epidemiology
FDIA is rare. Incidence rate estimates range from 1 to 28 per million children, although some assume that it may be much more common.One study showed that in 93 percent of FDIA cases, the abuser is the mother or another female guardian or caregiver. A psychodynamic model of this kind of maternal abuse exists.Fathers and other male caregivers have been the perpetrators in only seven percent of the cases studied. When they are not actively involved in the abuse, the fathers or male guardians of FDIA victims are often described as being distant, emotionally disengaged, and powerless. These men play a passive role in FDIA by being frequently absent from the home and rarely visiting the hospitalized child. Usually, they vehemently deny the possibility of abuse, even in the face of overwhelming evidence or their childs pleas for help.Overall, male and female children are equally likely to be the victim of FDIA.
Meadow was investigated by the British General Medical Council (GMC) over evidence he gave in the Sally Clark trial. In July 2005, the GMC declared Meadow guilty of "serious professional misconduct", and he was struck off the medical register for giving "erroneous" and "misleading" evidence. At appeal, High Court judge Mr. Justice Collins said that the severity of his punishment "approaches the irrational" and set it aside.Collinss judgment raises important points concerning the liability of expert witnesses – his view is that referral to the GMC by the losing side is an unacceptable threat and that only the Court should decide whether its witnesses are seriously deficient and refer them to their professional bodies.In addition to the controversy surrounding expert witnesses, an article appeared in the forensic literature that detailed legal cases involving controversy surrounding the murder suspect. The article provides a brief review of the research and criminal cases involving Munchausen syndrome by proxy in which psychopathic mothers and caregivers were the murderers. It also briefly describes the importance of gathering behavioral data, including observations of the parents who commit the criminal acts. The article references the 1997 work of Southall, Plunkett, Banks, Falkov, and Samuels, in which covert video recorders were used to monitor the hospital rooms of suspected FDIA victims. In 30 out of 39 cases, a parent was observed intentionally suffocating their child; in two they were seen attempting to poison a child; in another, the mother deliberately broke her three-month-old daughters arm.