1. The thoughts of Medea upon preparing to kill her twin sons reproduced from E. Hamilton (1940) Mythology (Boston: Little, Brown and Co.), pp. 129–30.
2. P.C. Hoffer and N.E.C. Hull (1984) Murdering Mothers: Infanticide in England and New England 1558–1803 (New York: New York University Press), p. 3.
3. See also C.L. Meyer and M. Oberman (2001) Mothers Who Kill their Children: Understanding the Acts of Moms from Susan Smith to the ‘Prom Mom’ (New York and London: New York University Press), p. 1.
4. See for instance S.E. Pitt and E.M. Bale (1995) ‘Neonaticide, Infanticide, and Filicide: A Review of the Literature’, Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 23, p. 3
5. Hoffer and Hull (1984) Murdering Mothers, p. 3