Infanticide, neonaticide and gender

Children are most likely to be killed by their parents. Infants aged under one are at particular risk of becoming victims of homicide. Men rarely commit neonaticide, but are more likely to kill older children and often within the context of fatal child abuse. Women's motivations for killing are often within the context of mental illness or altruistic reasons. Women are less likely to be convicted of murder than men and receive noncustodial sentences more readily than fathers who kill their children. It is often argued that women who kill their infants are pathologized, and perceived to be either mad or bad, ignoring the socioeconomic reasons for their acts of filicide. Legal treatment of women who kill infants can be inconsistent and, in some instances, unsympathetic, particularly in jurisdictions that do not have specific infanticide legislation that allows for leniency, such as the United States of America.