* Illness in a child that is faked or produced by a parent or caretaker

* Persistent presentation of the child for medical assessment and care, usually resulting in several medical procedures

* Denial of knowledge by the perpetrator of the cause of the illness in the child

MBPS involves parents, mainly mothers in a powerful controlling relationship whose goal is working through past humiliations with a powerful parental representative. A lot is still unknown about this condition, hindering its detection. Some have suggested a link between MBPS and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SID). It is up to all of us especially the health care specialists to find a way of protecting our children from the horrors of the world.

* The motivation for the perpetrator's behaviour is to assume the sick role by proxy

ymptoms of the alleged illness when the child is separated from the mother (Meadow, 2002).

It is important to note that these criteria apply the MBPS term to the perpetrator and not to the abuse. Other professional organisations have avoided defining MBPS and in the UK, guidelines are still being developed. At the moment in the UK, MBPS is being categorised as 'physical abuse' by child protection agencies even though it has a major mental/emotional impact as well (Meadow, 2002).

* The behaviour is not better accounted for by another mental disorder

* Intentional production or feigning of physical signs or symptoms in another person who is under the individual's care

The motives of MBPS are complicated and very poorly understood. Since it is, by nature, only circumstantially evidenced, it makes it difficult to understand the motivation behind MBPS perpetrators. As has already been mentioned, FDP is defined as a disorder of 'persons who intentionally falsify history, signs or symptoms in order to meet their own self-serving psychological needs'. This definition also goes on to state that "different kinds of self-serving psychological needs may motivate this behaviour. Some individuals appear to need or thrive on the attention or recognition that results from being perceived as the devoted parent of a sick child... [Others may] need to covertly manipulate or deceive authority figures or those perceived to be powerful''. Several psychologists have tried to explain it drawing clues from various case studies. One such case study is that of Kathy Bush (Schreier, 2002). She was taken to court in Florida State in 1999, accused of repetitively harming her daughter by inducing illnesses and fabricating symptoms over a course of about 10 years. These included infecting her child with bacterial strains resulting in two serious and almost fatal cases of sepsis, administering medication that was no longer needed and falsifying medical charts and notes. Despite all the evidence against her (including the testimony of 12 nurses!), all six members of the jury said that they believed she loved her daughter. After a three- month trial, she was convicted of aggravated child abuse and organised fraud. The jury convicted her without ever hearing MBPS as a possible argument due to a gagging order imposed by the judge on the term. From this and several other case studies, most psychologists have agreed that the primary motivation behind this compulsive and possibly dangerous behaviour, was the use of a sick child as a vehicle to maintain and r

Some common words found in the essay are:
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