A review by obsidian_blue
The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy by Andrea Dunlop, Mike Weber

3.0



So this book was fascinating to me. It takes apart what the authors consider three real life cases of Munchausen by proxy (MBP).

I think a lot of people have read or heard about MBP when came into the mainstream during the Patricia Stallings case in the late 1980s. I recall the movie made for TV event and it just comes out that the doctor's and others were wrong about the case and she was released after the prosecutors decided to not try her. I bring this up because I found this book to be overly heavy handed on MBP and does not show that hey sometimes doctors, CPS, and others are wrong. And one of the cases I thought was weird to include because I had so many questions left that I didn't agree with the authors on it.

The three cases that Dunlop and Weber get into are the following:

1) Hope Ybarra-many may have heard of this one because the mother in this one claimed to have cancer and was found out to be a lie. Also, I had someone in my hometown do this about two years ago (she claimed to be dying of breast cancer) and the fallout was epic and awful. I don't get why people do this, but this case did give me insight into how some of these people think.

2) Brittany Phillips-I never heard of this one, but I felt especially sad for the daughter in this one. But have to say, that parts of this about adoption felt a bit too "cultish" for my tastes.

3) Mary Welch-This was a weird one to include. Not to spoil readers or anything, but this outcome was different and I had way too many questions after this one to be on Dunlop and Weber's side for this.

That said, the main reason why I gave this book 3 stars was that I had a huge problem with Dunlop and Weber glossing over the real harm CPS has done in terms of other communities (Black and Hispanic). See the terrible mess of the Hart Family murders. Was that not a real case of MBP by the authors own definitions? In that case CPS ignored all of the warnings from teachers, neighbors, etc. and didn't investigate. And one wonders if they had been Black (the mothers in the Hart family) would more have been done? Also again, the Hart family shows what happens when CPS didn't seem to give a crap about keeping families together, they broke up families and would not allow other family members to adopt the children together who were related.

In addition, Dunlop and Weber keep taking swipes at Maya Kowalski's dead mother (Beata) which I thought was in poor taste, especially because according to their own indicators, not one person outside of the medical professionals agreed this was a MBP case. And the hospital in this case was found liable in her suicide.

See the below quote from People Magazine from November 2023.

Johns Hopkins Children's Hospital in Florida has been found liable in the wrongful death of Beata Kowalski, who died by suicide and whose ordeal was chronicled in the Netflix documentary Take Care of Maya.

According to CourtTV, which live streamed the decision, and WFTS and WTSP, the hospital was found liable of multiple claims, including the wrongful death of Beata and inflicting emotional distress on her, along with false imprisonment, battery, and inflicting emotional distress on her daughter Maya. The hospital was also found liable for the fraudulent billing of Jack Kowalski, Maya’s father.

Due to her requests, Beata was accused of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Through a psychological evaluation, it was eventually determined she did not have the mental illness, however, she was placed in state custody and remained in the hospital away from her family for more than three months, PEOPLE previously reported.


In this case, Maya's condition did not improve after her mother was banned from seeing her along with the rest of the family. So I wonder why that part was not included unless Dunlop and Weber want to ignore that piece?

And can we please stop with the medical professionals are never wrong? Cause one of the above cases (Mary Welch) clearly shows the doctors in Minnesota for the Mary Welch case should be investigated for doing medical procedures based on a mother's say so with no medical evidence provided.

And also once again, this book pushes out those who adopt have a higher "Christian" calling with the one author (Dunlop) saying not that she agrees with it. The whole book just read poorly by the end for me.

I think the book could have been more even handed and pointed out the cases where CPS and hospitals/doctors were wrong and other cases when they were proven right and explain the many ways the doctors and hospitals are limited on what they can do and or don't know when they should call in the police to investigate.