"Women who kill their children tend to be very needy. They need attention and an outlet for their frustrations," Dr. Schurman-Kauflin said. "Being self absorbed is common. Over time, the responsibility of raising children becomes frightening to them. They do not feel mature enough to handle their own lives, let alone the lives of little ones. So they begin to revert as a form of saying 'I can't take this.' In other words, they become child-like. Prior to killing, they begin slipping into increasingly outlandish behaviors. It is a twisted form of a cry for help. So, instead of staying home with the children and working on becoming more emotionally stable, they engage in teenager type behaviors. They have affairs and quit their jobs. Going out at a moment's notice becomes routine and they withdraw from their children."
Once they start withdrawing, Dr. Schurman-Kauflin said, they begin to lose themselves in fantasy - thinking about what their lives were like before they had children. snip*