Overlaying

This article is about killing children. For using the same region of memory for different computer code, see Overlay (programming).

Overlaying or overlying is the act of smothering a child to death by rolling over them in sleep.

Overlaying was perceived to be one common way of conducting infanticide in Victorian England. Many wet nurses were accused of this, and in many counties the wet nurse would have to provide a crib out of her own money to ensure that she would not sleep with the child.

In researching smothering deaths by black slaves in the American South, which occurred nine times more frequently than in white families, Michael P. Johnson suggests that sudden infant death syndrome was in fact to blame (which, if it happened in white families, would be heavily underreported because of the social stigma attached).[1]

References

  1. ↑ Johnson, Michael P. (November 1981), "Smothered Slave Infants: Were Slave Mothers at Fault?", The Journal of Southern History (The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 47, No. 4) 47 (4), pp. 493–520, doi:10.2307/2207400, JSTOR 2207400
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