Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
Characteristics of the Child
The child who is the victim of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy will exhibit the following characteristics;
● The child would have been in the hospital or other healthcare facilities many times and has had meetings with healthcare providers many times.
● The child would have had many tests and procedures done to them. These include X-rays, MRI procedures, surgeries, and others (MedlinePlus, 2017).
● The symptoms of the child are often mysterious in nature in that they do not match with the results of the tests carried out. As a result of that, the symptoms do not match with any known disease.
● The symptoms of the child are seen by the mother or nanny alone. When the child is taken to the hospital, there would be no symptoms only for them to occur again when the child is at home. Often, this is due to the mother being skilled in a certain medical field hence able to make up the symptoms.
● The samples of blood found in the child's stool or urine do not match with those taken from the child. This is because the mother is providing fake evidence (Feldman, 2013, p.66).
● There are chemicals or drugs found in the stool, urine or blood of the child when tests are carried out.
Type of Trauma
Among the trauma faced by the child on this case are;
● Due to being in hospitals and around healthcare givers all the time, the child does not enjoy their time with their peers or their own company.
● Being subjected to many medical procedures is also an issue that traumatizes them by reducing the quality of life.
● When the doctors find strange symptoms in the child and have to interrogate the child on how they feel, the child becomes confused given that the mother would be telling the doctors a different story from what the child actually feels.
● The fact also that the symptoms age reported by the mother yet not found in the child may paint the child as a liar and a pretender to the health care providers.
● At times, the mother may make the child to take certain dangerous drugs to inflict dangerous accidents on the child to make the game symptoms more believable.
…
