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Child Stealing and Pseudocyesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

P. T. d'Orbán
P. T. d'Orbán*
Affiliation:
Royal Free Hospital, Pond Street, London NW3 2QG
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Extract

Describing the occurrence of pseudocyesis and its treatment in a 15-year-old girl, Hardwick and Fitzpatrick (1981) pose the question whether there is any association between pseudocyesis and child stealing. They comment that such an association has not so far been reported. However, cases of presumed pseudocyesis have previously been noted among child stealers (d'Orbán, 1972; 1976; 1981) (based on patients' accounts which could not be verified) and three characteristic offence patterns were described:

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 141 , Issue 2 , August 1982 , pp. 196 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1982 

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References

d'Orbán, P. T. (1972) Baby stealing. British Medical Journal, 2, 635–39.Google Scholar
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d'Orbán, P. T. (1981) Baby stealing: Motives and punishment The Police Surgeon, 19, 74–80.Google Scholar
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Hardwick, P. J. & Fitzpatrick, C. (1981) Fear, folie and phantom pregnancy: Pseudocyesis in a fifteen-year-old girl. British Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 558–62.Google Scholar
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