Munchausen's syndrome by proxy

From Ganfyd

Fabricated or induced illness in a child, contrived by a parent. Examples include failure to thrive due to food witholding, and salt poisoning. Presumes that the parent gains in terms of attention, sympathy, sick role etc in the same way as Munchausen syndrome.

Although there are plenty of cases of parents fabricating or inducing illness in children, there is little evidence for a common psychopathology and it is unclear whether or not there is a specific group with characteristics distinguishing it from other forms of child abuse.^[1]

References