Randomisation.

Abstract

and their emotional needs are analogous to women with pseudocyesis -there is one reported case of both pseudocyesis and baby stealing."'Yet though women with pseudocyesis might receive psychotherapy or treatment for concurrent depression," non-psychotic women who abduct infants are as likely to be given a punitive sentence.Even when women receive treatment this does not mean that their behaviour has been understood or that their treatment has been rationally based.The relation between treatment and outcome, and even what the treatment should be, is unknown.Furthermore, women who commit unusual offences may be recommended for psychiatric care without much exploration of their motives and therapeutic needs, a practice that has been called "playing the labels" to provide a "ticket to the psychiatrist."'2A humane recommendation by the courts is not the same as understanding an offence.If better awareness of the causes of baby stealing and the most suitable legal outcomes are to be achieved a precise study of outcome, the impact of hospital treatment, and the prediction of repetition and persistent vulnerability is necessary, extending previous work beyond the point of the court's initial recommendation.There is also a more delicate, perhaps controversial, use for such information-to help detect the offender'3 and to reassure the parents of the stolen child, who are the real victims of the offence.They can take comfort from the knowledge that most abducted babies are found quickly as there is often no attempt to conceal them.And, although there are dramatic exceptions,'4 the babies are almost always well cared for by the women who are desperate and disturbed enough to steal them.4