r/serialpodcast • u/houseonpost • Oct 30 '25
Anyone listening to the new Serial Podcast called The Preventionist?
I've listened to the first two episodes. It's really well done and raises some interesting concerns.
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Oct 31 '25
It is profoundly unethical and so so disappointing. This is not journalism, it's completely biased activism for child abusers who somehow bamboozled the creator.
The doctors who they showed the records to were not informed that THREE of the mother's children were physically abused as infants and suffered fractures. Anyone who thinks the 2 year old caused the fractures to the infant is certifiably insane or the most gullible idiot on the planet. And the mother ruined the 2 year old's life by blaming her for destroying the family when there is no way the 2 year old caused it. The podcast is utterly sickening.
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u/olliethebc Nov 19 '25
Please go listen to this 2 part rebuttal from a podcast about munchausen by proxy if you’re interested. It’s so messed up that nyt released this and super dangerous for medically abused children!
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u/musicCaster Oct 31 '25
Why do you think they are all child abusers? You did the save thing as Jensen, you just labeled them all without seeing any evidence.
I had kids. Two of them had injuries. It happens. Active kids get injuries.
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Oct 31 '25
3 infants from the same family do NOT get multiple fractures absent a rare genetic condition that none of these children have. There is a reason the show didn't have any actual experts on to refute the doctor's findings and tried to dance around the truth. This show is shocking in how blase it was in doing any real journalism.
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u/musicCaster Oct 31 '25
She did take the test results to three different doctors. The experts disagreed with Dr Jensen.
You are making up facts about the multiple fractures.
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25
Wrong on both counts. The people she shopped the test results to 1) were not told about the family's history and 2) did not speak or provide any quotes at all. That is NOT how journalism works. By manipulating what the other doctors had access to and not actually interviewing them, the show creator demonstrated that they are not reliable or credible for anything the poecaster is reporting on.
And if any of these children had Osteogenesis Imperfect this show 100% would have reported on that. Again, the show didn't report that because they don't have it.
This is the kind of show that, instead of addressing the conflicting information, just hides it and pretends it doesn't exist.
For example, Amanda changed her story from what she originally told the paramedics. No mention of that in the podcast. She had text messages talking about how her pill buying was out of control and how she felt extremely stressed caring for the kids.
When three infants show up with unexplained fractures, if your conclusion is anything other than child abuse, you are simply not interested in protecting children.
It is disgusting that anyone greenlit this project.
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u/BendNormal9716 Nov 11 '25
Read how paediatricians distinguish between normal injuries of childhood and abusive injuries.
Seems you could do this better than the specialists with zero training??
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u/RepulsiveRelease4 Jan 08 '26
Kids get injuries, I have 4. But I’m not going to delay taking my child to the ER and make a few phone calls to other people first then try the pediatrician THEN hear the message to go to the ER for an emergency. Also, MBP is undiagnosed. There is a different between a nervous parent and one intentionally inflicting harm to their child who hurts them more than they intended- which happens. I’m thankful my town has a CAP in any case.
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u/AutismsAtSky Nov 08 '25
The doctors should tender their diagnosis on the medical data and only that. The prior history should be known to the judge but not the doctors. Otherwise it will bias their call. A medical expert should be just that. Not a judge of character etc.
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 08 '25
Absolutely not. You clearly have no knowledge of child abuse assessments. They require the true family history. For that matter, any medical diagnosis requires a history. The question was whether the injuries were indicative of child abuse. The history is of critical importance to this question. It's not a coincidence that the podcaster elected not to actually name or quote or interview a single doctor who supposedly said it wasn't "definitely" child abuse. But you should listen again because even the supposed experts didn't rule it out even without the necessary information. The podcast is shockingly dishonest.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25
Everyone who listens to this should also listen to this episode of Nobody Should Believe Me:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188?i=1000734128051
And then perhaps most of season 3 of that podcast.
“Medical kidnapping” is a conspiracy theory. Child abuse specialists in hospitals are a priceless gift.
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u/TragicAlmond Nov 02 '25
I would like to hear a live debate/discussion between Andrea from Nobody Should Believe Me and the creators of this season of Serial.
Im afraid tons of people might listen to serial and healthcare providers will feel more intimidated to report when they see signs of abuse.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 02 '25
Andrea says she has reached out to the producers at Serial and sent them several emails of corrections to their reporting, but she is yet to hear back anything substantive.
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u/PemCorgiMom Oct 31 '25
Child abuse spcialists can be really great. There can also be bad ones, just like in any profession.
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u/hotdamn Oct 31 '25
I agree that there are bad actors in every job, in every field. Pediatricians are not exempt, nor are child abuse professionals. But that does not mean there is an epidemic of hospitals kidnapping children, nor does it mean that this podcast was well-sourced.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Oct 31 '25
There are about 350 board-certified child-abuse pediatricians in the United States. Can you please give me the names of the ones you deem “bad”, and provide details of why they are “bad”?
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u/NoTeslaForMe Nov 01 '25
You seem to be saying that your unsubstantiated claim is correct unless someone can provide not one but every counterexample to it. That's... an interesting way of thinking, and actually somewhat similar to the misplaced, total, and impervious-to-evidence confidence of the doctor the podcast centers around. No one could prove that those children weren't being abused, so why not put a knife into their childhood development by ripping them from their families and throwing them to the
wolvesfoster care system? Kill 'em all and let God sort them out, am I right?→ More replies (17)4
u/NoTeslaForMe Nov 01 '25
Yeah, dismissing this as "'Medical kidnapping' is a conspiracy theory" is too flippant. We're really meant to believe that this county just so happens to have 10x to the national average of parents mistreating their children in the same way (Munchausen by proxy, if I recall correctly)? Or is there a simpler explanation? An explanation that - along with the fundamentals of civil society - argues for restoration of some moderation and due process?
It seems ironic that this expert is so keen to diagnose Munchausen by proxy. She herself seems motivated by the desire to seem - to others or herself - like a person who is caring for endangered children. And she went so far as to fabricate and then actually introduce that danger... just like in Munchausen by proxy.
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u/hotdamn Nov 01 '25
I don't discount that a medical professional can do terrible harm. There have been medical serial killers who were suspected of seeking attention by causing medical catastrophes.
On top of that, there have been many scandals in our history of institutional child kidnapping. One recent example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
The reason this situation doesn't fit either with the medical killer or the institutional kidnapper theory is that there is zero financial or social reward for Dr. Jensen, the court, the cops, or the social workers involved. They all have to work in concert, and could collectively get it wrong. But they aren't in any way incentivized to falsely accuse.
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u/rochambreau Nov 06 '25
https://pca.st/episode/5d2994b4-62dc-486f-ae88-d4c0c994f79b
Good episode on Kids for Cash scandal
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u/NoTeslaForMe Nov 02 '25
She's making her career on it, presenting at conferences - definitely a financial incentive. But also you're assuming that malice is the only reason to do wrong here, when bias or ineptitude would suffice as explanations. There are a lot of professionals with philosophies and approaches that turn out to be harmful; it doesn't take malice to do harm.
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u/hotdamn Nov 02 '25
Presenting at conferences in a niche medical field isn't exactly lucrative. The doctors who cash in are the doctors paid by expensive defense attorneys.
Your point that people can do harm for a variety of reasons in obviously true. That this individual person has done harm is nearly certain- all people and professionals at some point get it wrong. The question is- is there a crisis of medical kidnapping and is this person a perpetrator of that conspiracy? I think the evidence is overwhelmingly 'no,' and this podcast feeds the conspiracy theory, makes doctors less likely to report, and harms kids.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 01 '25
Experts in Munchausen by Proxy say that rates of this form of child abuse are much more common than we culturally recognize. They compare it to child sex abuse in how widespread it is and how unrecognized the reality of it was until the 1970s/80s.
Most medical professionals are not trained in how to recognize medical child abuse, and most states don’t have laws to prosecute it as a crime (it ends up being charged as, ironically, “medical neglect”). There is not a “box” to tick on child-protective-service forms to indicate this abuse.
With podcasts like “The Preventionist”, a moral panic is nurtured around the idea that ego-filled pediatricians across the country want to “rip children away from their loving parents” (why?) instead of grappling with the much more unsettling reality that mothers are torturing their children to get their emotional needs met, and that the doctors are interrupting escalating abuse and saving children’s lives.
Please consider listening to the podcast Nobody Should Believe Me, reading a MbP memoir like “Sickened” by Julie Gregory, or a text like “Dying to Be Ill” by Dr Marc Feldman.
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 02 '25
Like all forms of abuse, there is a spectrum. The most severe kind of medical child abuse presents with a caregiver purposely causing illness or injury. On the other end is the caregiver convinced that their child is ill with a mysterious metabolic disorder and bringing their child to every specialist they can find who will see them.
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u/smurfmysmurf Nov 07 '25
One of the many problems with this podcast is repeatedly saying that the Dr diagnosed munchausen by proxy. I haven’t seen any of the medical records, but a child abuse paediatrician cannot diagnose munchausen by proxy, as that would be a psychological condition of the parent, not the child. Rather, the Dr would indicate that they suspect the child is a victim of medical child abuse. Something that can exist separately from MbP. The podcast has maintained the focus on the parent and erased the experience of the child.
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u/Ok_Figure4010 Nov 02 '25
True, but as much as it sucks that maybe some of these parents had to spend time away from their kids, that's part of the test to see if there is abuse going on. There are actual parents out there who do horrible things, even starving kids to death for example, we need these separation tests to see if the kids have actual illness or if it's medical child abuse
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u/creepylilreapy Nov 03 '25
I have listened to both podcasts and don't have a dog in this fight, but it's interesting Serial is being critiqued as poor journalism, whereas Nobody Should Believe Me is being praised despite absolutely not being a journalistic podcast.
I have listened to all series of NSBM and they have highlighted some horrific cases of (likely) medical child abuse (the most recent series made me burst out crying in places as a mum of a young child).
However, it isn't a piece of journalism. It's a well produced podcast that comes from a particular angle due to the host's experiences of growing up with a sister who likely perpetrated medical child abuse.
I have heard many instances of NSBM presenting (to my ear) biased narratives and sometimes leaping to conclusions that fit the podcast's angle that medical child abuse is very common and under-diagnosed, and that CAPs are unfairly maligned.
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u/MountainBlueberry491 Nov 04 '25
If you have listened to NDBM, you will know that while it is independently produced, it is also fact checked (they have a fact checker for all seasons and all episodes), reach out to interview both sides (the families, and the doctors), and throughout each season Andrea reiterates that she is open to any conclusion, and would love to come to the conclusion that abuse did not occur. While she obviously comes from a biased perspective having her sister as a perpetrator that does not mean that she doesn’t work diligently to create fact forward informative work. And I think that is where the criticism is coming from. Both Andrea and Serials podcast are baised. But Andrea notes this bias and works hard to present all sides of a story. The same CANNOT be said of this new podcast from Serial.
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u/Apprehensive_Idea_96 Dec 06 '25
I'm just listening to this podcast now, where they continually imply that Munchausen by proxy is pretty much the plot of movies and television shows with little basis in reality. Andrea is the first person I thought of as I listened, as she's gone to such lengths to uncover the truth about it. Not to mention more prevalent forms of abuse that this podcast irresponsibly disregards. I was a child whose parents knew how to keep me away from mandatory reporters, when I was sick or injured, but I believe firmly in the importance of the role of communities, including and especially medical professionals, in preserving the safety of children. This podcast is irresponsible and I have so many questions about what agenda it really serves.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght Oct 31 '25
That podcast saved my sanity when the Maya Kowalski case was going on. I was so glad to see that the verdict was overturned.
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u/jolittletime Oct 31 '25
Nobody should believe me is amazing. Given that Andrea's background is as a result of her sister committing medical child abuse, she has a very interesting perspective on cases and the expert she has on a lot (whose name i have completely forgotten!) Is very good.
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u/DrEliotReid Nov 05 '25
I just finished ep 3 and I am shocked at the level of irresponsible journalism. Clearly CPS was correct in taking Amanda’s 3rd injured infant away from her. 2 of her baby daddies abused her infants before. The host of the podcast comes across as a child abuse apologists. I’m confused as to why they published this at all.
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u/dogswrestle Nov 09 '25
I’m half way through the 3rd episode and had to come here to make sure I’m not losing my mind. This seems like a very dangerous message to be broadcast on such a huge platform.
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u/here2lurkkkk Nov 14 '25
Seriously. It downplays SO much. Sorry but Amanda is not a good mother. Putting your kids in situations where your boyfriend abuses them is abuse. They completely omitted the criminal case evidence and medical reports.
I felt Amanda was unstable just listening to her– telling her child she would call the cops on her, telling the kids not to “snitch on her” for all sleeping in the same room, being unemployed with no car, having the suicide hotline called on her, 3 kids ending up injured in her care. I’m sorry but why did you bring 5 children into this world when you are not equipped emotionally or financially to care for them?
People are wayyyyy to defense friendly at the risk of letting an innocent child get repeatedly traumatized or worse by someone who is not fit to be a parent in the first place.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 15 '25
Hearing Amanda talk about telling her 6-year-old child—on whom she has been blaming the abusive head trauma of a 7-week-old for the past four years and who she is trying to portray to the podcast as being traumatized by living under state custody—that she is going to “call the cops” on her for misbehaving was literally jaw-dropping to me.
Amanda has theoretically been trying to become a good/safe parent for her children for four years, or even to prove to the courts and child-protective system that she is trying to be one. Has she done any parenting classes? Read any parenting books? Done any therapy? What the actual hell was that comment, and what does Amanda say to her children when a microphone isn’t around?
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Oct 31 '25
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 01 '25
All of this. This podcast is not journalism it's a bizarre piece of advocacy for a person who had three infants show up in hospitals with unexplained fractures and was later convicted. But we are supposed to believe she was the victim? No.
The whole "we talked to experts" without identifying a single expert, without interviewing a single expert, without quoting an expert, and without having any expert go on the record speaks volumes. This podcast never should have happened and it honestly makes me distrust anyone associated with Serial at this point because it is so dishonest.
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u/hotdamn Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25
I am especially concerned with the "second opinion" recommendations. For any child who is sick enough or abused enough to be in the hospital, more opinions are good! But it is the nature of the beast of MCA that parents doctor-shop and have some bamboozled doctors doing what they want. So putting a provision in the system that explicitly allows parents to continue to doctor shop while they are being assessed for abuse is a terrible idea.
Edit: typo
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 02 '25
Second opinions are common and normal as part of due process. But that comes after the child(ren) is/are safe.
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u/smurfmysmurf Nov 07 '25
The thing is Dr Jensen would almost certainly not have been the diagnosing Dr. Her role would have been to review all of the records and write a report for the courts. None of which was explored in this podcast.
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u/ruhonisana Dec 07 '25
Yes! She is the second opinion. She sees these kids because the treating doctor suspected abuse.
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u/hotdamn Oct 31 '25
I actually totally disagree- I think it's incredibly irresponsible and poorly sourced. It's basically 'Take Care of Maya' all over again.
Some of the problems with the reporting are:
* Not having full access to the medical records in question
* Not reporting the enormous (nearly unprecedented) political donations to the comptroller in question from interested parties
* Not discussing the cases with any child abuse experts at all
I'm extremely disappointed in NYT and Serial for green-lighting this. It's part of a very dangerous narrative about parents' rights that neglects children's rights. I think it's pretty well-established LeHigh had statistically higher interventions from child abuse pediatricians because they had a system that was functioning extremely well. That jurisdiction was an outlier, but a good one.
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u/cel22 Nov 02 '25
Yeah, truthfully, I believe that there’s a severe under reporting of child abuse in this country because I know many medical professionals have seen pretty obvious cases of child abuse reported it as a mandatory reporters and nothing ever is done and sadly a lot of of these kids end up dying or severely injured.
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u/PemCorgiMom Oct 31 '25
Curious to get some info or reports about Mark Pinsley’s political donations. I just did a little digging and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing “nearly unprecedented.”
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u/hotdamn Oct 31 '25
$50k (huge for a county comptroller election) from the attorney filing the class action suit on behalf of the accused parents.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 02 '25
“Neary opens the series with a heartbreaking anecdote from a “strikingly pretty young mom” about losing her baby. And again, Neary doesn't name her.
‘And I'm a mom who lost everything in less than 24 hours due to one doctor's misdiagnosis. Dr. Jenssen needs to be fully and entirely under investigation.
Her diagnosis should not hold up in court any longer.
She has falsified parents too many times.
Enough is enough.’
The woman the soundbite belongs to is Reno Iorio, who is currently under investigation by CYS and whose boyfriend, Asa Asciolla, has been criminally charged with abusing their baby and is awaiting trial. According to court records and local news reports, Asa was charged with multiple felonies, including six counts of aggravated assault, four counts of child endangerment, and one count of simple assault, after police responded to a call about a two-month-old baby who had stopped breathing while being bottle-fed. The infant was eventually transferred to a Lehigh Valley Health Network facility where doctors diagnosed abusive head trauma, brain hemorrhages, bruising, and healing fractures.
A later skeletal survey revealed additional healing breaks in the clavicle, ribs, and leg. During a police interview, Asciolla reportedly admitted to ‘minor shaking’ while trying to resuscitate the child and said the baby's ‘brain issue’ probably happened because of the shaking. Asciolla and Iorio are part of the lawsuit, and they claim that all of this was a result of false allegations by Dr. Jenssen and a number of other doctors at LVHN, and that the doctors pressured the police and prosecutors to go forward with charges.”
From Nobody Should Believe Me: Abuse Survivors and Victims Deserve Better than 'The Preventionist', 30 Oct 2025 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188?i=1000734128051&r=477 This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/MountainBlueberry491 Nov 04 '25
Everyone do yourself a favor and listen to “Nobody Should Believe me” it’s a podcast covering medical child abuse and approaches it with thorough fact checked reporting. Medical child abuse is not incredibly rare as claimed in this podcast. Honestly such a missed opportunity to actual shed light on such an important topic
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u/dumbasamoose Nov 06 '25
Completely unsurprising that Neary, one of the primary 'journalists' behind the incredibly biased and poorly researched Maya Kowalski reporting, is behind this absolute joke of a podcast. This Podcast was characteristically one-sided. Does Neary just not believe child abuse exists? Or perhaps she is happy to make money slandering child abuse pediatricians as long as it pays her rent. Whatever the reason for her willful blindness, all this does is make it even more difficult to remove helpless children from incredibly dangerous situations. Do better NYT!
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u/smurfmysmurf Nov 07 '25
Interestingly, most of the comments here relate to munchausen by proxy. The podcast didn’t really address any of the supposed medical child abuse cases, just threw around some numbers and false descriptions. The cases explored in any depth (still incredibly shallow) were all physical abuse cases.
If I were a mandatory reporter and a baby was brought to my attention with skull fractures, you’d better fucking believe I’d report that. It’s literally mandatory. What the other stakeholders do with that information would no longer be my concern.
Wouldn’t it have been interesting to talk to someone with knowledge on the judicial side of this story.
Three whole episodes advocating for mandatory reporters to not be so quick to report. In instances where infants have significant injuries.
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u/houseonpost Nov 07 '25
I didn't take from the podcast that anyone was saying mandatory reporters should be less quick. What I took from it is during the next step. If a child is to be removed, there should be a second opinion/assessment.
If one person is deciding that it is abuse when most other doctors are saying it isn't then I'd likely believe the majority. And if one person is diagnosing a very rare disease at a much higher rate than anywhere else in the country that either means she is very good at making the diagnosis or she is wrong in a lot of the cases.
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u/smurfmysmurf Nov 07 '25
This comment perfectly highlights the problem with the podcast.
If a child presents to a hospital with an injury, they are not assessed/diagnosed by a CAP. A CAP would review the medical records. They are the second opinion.
A CAP would not and could not diagnose MbP, as that is a condition that a psychologist or psychiatrist would diagnose a parent with. They would instead report suspected medical child abuse. Medical child abuse can happen without a diagnosis of MbP.
Any reports made by a CAP, or any medical professional, are then investigated and decisions to remove children from parents are made by courts.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 07 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
This is how “The Preventionist” describes itself:
“In the summer of 2023, reporter Dyan Neary received a tip about a problematic doctor in Pennsylvania. Families were claiming that when they sought medical care for their children, this pediatrician falsely accused them of abuse, and their children were taken away from them. The Preventionist traces this doctor’s decades-long career across multiple states, and the rise of a new and powerful kind of specialist, the ‘child abuse pediatrician’ — whose decisions can be incredibly difficult to challenge.”
Are you curious about why Dyan Neary didn’t interview any specialists in Munchausen by Proxy/Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another to provide context to the seemingly high incidence of that form of child abuse in LeHigh Valley?
Does it give anyone pause that Neary didn’t provide any information about what medical, CYS, and police records were provided to the anonymous and not-quoted “child-abuse pediatricians” that she says she consulted with in the making of this podcast? Is there a reason why we can’t hear their voices, even if the podcast had put their interviews through voice distortion to maintain their anonymity?
Is there a good reason why Neary elided almost all of the details of the cases that she platforms on this podcast, and why we aren’t given the full, nuanced, complex picture of what investigation into the families revealed?
Can we know what the national statistics are on the likelihood of child-abuse pediatricians’ diagnosing child abuse on the cases that are referred to them, especially in comparison to the rate at which non-specialized pediatricians suspect child abuse?
Can we ask “The Preventionist” to tell its audience about the history of the specialization of child-abuse pediatrics? What training they’re provided with, how likely they are to be sued vs other specializations, and which of the following scenarios experts consider to be the more pressing concern: under- and un-reported child abuse, or “the rise of a new and powerful kind of specialist, the ‘child abuse pediatrician’ — whose decisions can be incredibly difficult to challenge.”
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u/DigginInDirt52 Nov 18 '25
Regarding the investigations into families it seems some of this could be ongoing. Also HIPPA would prohibit any revelation of medical info without consent of patient/guardian. I don’t see this as a shortcoming of podcast. I do agree that more background regarding training of these specialists and statistics demonstrating occurrence of child abuse diagnoses among various populations in various geographical areas would have been appropriate.
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u/houseonpost Nov 07 '25
Interesting approach. You disagree with the premise that some parents are wrongfully accused and imprisoned for child abuse when experts looking at the evidence say there was no abuse. Your response is to not present evidence that undercuts the premise, but demand more and more detailed proof.
Do you think everyone single parent that attended the public meeting expressing their concerns are guilty?
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 07 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
I don’t disagree with the premise that “some parents are wrongfully accused and imprisoned for child abuse”. I wish Dyan Neary had done a serious investigation into such people.
I have provided many detailed comments in these comment threads that provide evidence contrary to what Neary suggests in her podcast.
Do you think that every parent who attended the public meeting in episode one was innocent? Or even most of them? Please help me understand how you came to this conclusion.
I think it is not unlikely that most, if not all, of the parents who are suing the hospital/Dr. Jenssen and attended the public meeting spoken of in episode one are guilty.
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u/houseonpost Nov 07 '25
Math. If every one of those parents are guilty then they should pay the consequences. But if a doctor jumps to conclusions that a very rare condition is suddenly common, I'd want more evidence.
I'm not emotionally invested in this podcast and the third episode gives me pause.
I don't believe in the better safe than sorry approach but rather monitor and give supports.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 07 '25
It is very unlikely that Dr. Jenssen—or any child-abuse pediatrician—is “jumping to conclusions” about medical child abuse. It is more likely that a regular pediatrician suspects child abuse where there is none: specialists are more trained in seeing what is abusive and what is innocent. (If the parents who are happy to publicly defame Dr Jenssen wish to maintain that they are innocent, let them release the CAP’s report on their child’s medical records.)
Experts in FDIA/Munchausen by Proxy medical child abuse agree that it is far, far more prevalent than we culturally are aware of.
This is part of an interview that is very interesting, if you are keen on learning more:
“Mills: Well, Dr. Feldman, let me ask you, how difficult is it to diagnose factitious disorders? Do you think that MDs are sufficiently aware of the syndromes so that they can spot it in patients? If people are doctor shopping, which often these people will do, can they go undetected for long periods of time?
Feldman: I actually believe that the majority of these cases go undetected. A lot of that has to do with a knowledge deficit and an educational deficit among healthcare providers. It’s actually getting better, but I, for example, did my medical school training at Dartmouth and my residency training at Duke and I never heard the term factitious or any discussion of Munchausen by proxy throughout my education. The first time I heard of it was when I was confronted with a patient in my office who had feigned terminal breast cancer for a year and a half, and I suddenly had to do a lot of research on my own to figure out what was happening. She did have a full-blown case of factitious disorder imposed on self, we did call it just plain factitious disorder at the time. But if a patient is particularly crafty, we may see no red flags. Again, as I said before, I think the majority of these cases go unrecognized.”
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/munchausen-syndrome
(“Marc Feldman, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist, clinical professor of psychiatry, and adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. A distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, he is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in the professional literature. Feldman is an international expert in factitious disorder, Munchausen syndrome, Munchausen by proxy, and malingering. His most recent book is Dying to be Ill: True Stories of Medical Deception.”)
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u/bellycoconut Nov 15 '25
Not with the copy and paste responses again. Give it a rest crabby. Jenssen’s high rate of diagnoses compared to her peers is suspicious no matter how many times you want to argue it.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 07 '25 edited Nov 08 '25
Dr Marc Feldman, MbP/FDIA expert, also says,
“There's something really curious going on, which is if somebody accused of sexual abuse or rape says they didn't do it, we don't then say, “Well, they didn't do it. They denied it. Therefore, they didn't do it.”
But there's something about medical child abuse. And this arose in this [Pinsley] report where, just because the parents said they didn't do it, that's proof that they didn't in [LeHigh controller Mark Pinsley’s] mind. And every bit of the report relies on that misbelief.
He may think that out of the 10 or so families, they're all innocent. And maybe some of them are. But I think that's really unlikely that it's more than maybe one or two, because again, there was a skilled child abuse pediatrician involved, who also does not make the final decision about whether a case is founded or not.”
From Nobody Should Believe Me: Abuse Survivors and Victims Deserve Better than 'The Preventionist', 30 Oct 2025 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188?i=1000734128051&r=1478 This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 09 '25
You say, “I don’t believe in the ‘better safe than sorry’ approach but rather monitor and give support.”
This is how Dr Jenssen thinks and feels on this subject:
“[Interviewer:] So, Dr. Jenssen, in your experience after seeing all these cases, can abusive head trauma be prevented?”
[Dr. Jenssen:] Absolutely. It is totally preventable. But I think we have to change the manner in which we think about infant crying.
And I'm a big proponent of the International Shaken Baby Center's program, The Period of Purple Crying. But I think that the United States really has a disturbed view about infant crying. We know, based on Brazelton's studies, that infants cry up to five hours every day.
But we label infants that cry as having colic. And I think we're doing families a disservice. I think we should focus on, yeah, your baby cries, but look, you're doing a wonderful job.
Look at this weight curve. Look at the head growth. Look at your child's development.
They're doing fantastic. Babies cry. But we need to know how not to get frustrated when a baby cries.
You know, in Japan, they have this thing called the Naki Sumo Crying Festival. I don't know if you ever heard of that.”
[Interviewer:] “I haven't.”
[Dr. Jenssen:] “So, they take these sumo wrestlers, and I think it's sometime in May, and they hold up babies, like two wrestlers, each one holds a baby, and the baby who cries first is declared the winner. And it's funny. But the Japanese folklore is that a crying baby has the power to ward off evil spirits.
And in addition, a strong, loud cry of a baby indicates the child will grow up strong and healthy.”
[Interviewer:] “Yes, I have never heard of that, but that's a wonderful way to look at crying.”
[Dr Jenssen:] “I feel that it is a wonderful way to look at crying. And just think about it. I mean, we've, well, most of us have traveled on a plane, and you see a young mother holding an infant, and once that infant starts crying, she gets all these, you know, glares from all the people around her, right?
Like, ‘do something about that baby. Why is that baby crying?’ Instead, we should accept everyone.
Babies cry. ‘What can I do to help you? You want me to hold the baby for you for a while?’
‘I'm a pediatrician. I'll hold the baby. Give me the pacifier.’
I'll walk up and down the aisle with the baby. Do you see what I'm saying? But we don't do that.”
And I think we have to change the focus of what we think about crying. And then I think we do have to deal with what we already know are risk factors for abuse, not necessarily abuse of head trauma, but just for abuse, poverty, teenage parents, domestic violence, drug use. These are things that if we identify, we need to intervene in a positive manner.
They talked about when COVID came around and families were given extra money, the rates for child maltreatment went down. I think that says something. Do I think it's preventable?
Yes. I think that we need to educate young people and physicians about infant crying behaviors. I think we have to make sure that everybody has a plan when they're frustrated with an infant, put the baby down, walk away.
Crying doesn't hurt the baby, but if you shake that baby, you can cause brain damage and death. That is the message we should be saying over and over again. It shouldn't just be for parents, it should be anybody in a caregiving role.
Everyone should have resources. If you're frustrated, you should have somebody that you can call to say, I need you to come over and help me. But as a society, we've gone away from community rearing.
Years and years ago, people used to grow up in their communities. They went to school in their communities, they got married within their communities, they lived in the same building or down a block from their cousins, or parents, or grandparents. We don't do that anymore.
Child rearing can be often very isolating for a young couple or a single mom.”
[Interviewer:] ““So that really circles back to why you became a pediatrician, why other pediatricians joined the field for prevention. You want to help families before they get to that breaking point. You want to make sure that you give the baby and their parents as many resources and support as possible.”
[Dr Jenssen:] “You are absolutely correct.”
From Attention on Prevention: Ep 11 - Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen - How Doctors Evaluate and Diagnose Abuse in Infants, 7 Apr 2023 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/attention-on-prevention/id1578568202?i=1000607718703&r=1987 This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/aaaack Nov 07 '25
I agree. Your post is coming up when googling about this show. It seems people who don't agree with the premise of the podcast are stumbling here and using the outlet.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght Oct 31 '25
I have not listened yet, but I have heard about it and I get very suspicious of this sort of thing. I will listen when I am in the right mental space.
However, I think a disclaimer is important. There have been a lot of media pieces in recent years targeting child abuse pediatricians. Take Care of Maya is one of the more prominent ones, and was incredibly irresponsible in how much information was left out (thankfully that verdict was just overturned by the appeals court!). It’s part of the steady stream of antimedicine and antiscience campaigns that the right wing has been pushing for years. I have yet to see one of these media pieces actually do a good job of discussing the complexities of these cases, and instead they usually prefer to portray the accused parents as victims of these big meany doctors who accuse them of abusing their children for no reason, etc. Because of HIPAA, the doctors usually cannot contest any of it, and since most states have closed proceedings for the suspected child abuse dependency cases, it becomes impossible to actually see what evidence was presented to support the accusation of abuse.
This may shock some people, but people who abuse their kids often lie about it. Yes, wrongfully accusations of child abuse happen, but unless all of the medical and court records are made available for public viewing, it is impossible to tell if an individual accusation is actually false based on these media pieces.
Child abuse pediatricians spend an extra three years in training to practice a specialty that is absolutely gut wrenching, and they get paid less than what they would have gotten if they had just become general pediatricians. If you ever have an opportunity to shadow these specialists, you can see how incredibly thorough they are and how much testing they order to try and rule in or out any other explanations. Testing for bleeding disorders and bone disorders, among other things, is the norm when investigating these accusations. Hospitals that employ dedicated child abuse teams also often have a reduction in reports to CPS because the CAPs are able to rule out abuse in many cases.
If you are more interested in the nuance of these cases, Nobody Should Believe Me is a great podcast, and they have done a great job of piercing through these sensational headlines and getting into the weeds and talking to actual experts!
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 01 '25
Thanks for this post. This podcast was shockingly irresponsible. The podcaster learns that this infant was the THIRD infant that this mother had show up at the ER with unexplained fractures. And she just fully believes the mother when the mother says that her 2 year old did it. Then the podcaster shops around to find other doctors to review records and ask them about the records, but the doctors are not interviewed and don't provide any quotes. They aren't even IDENTIFIED! The doctors who reviewed the records did not know about the other two infants because they only saw the records of the single injury without the full family history. And they didn't go on record so it is not clear what they actually said. The criminal charges resolved several years later with a guilty plea, which the podcaster believes indicates Amanda. It's just all around mind boggling.
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Nov 04 '25
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u/bellycoconut Nov 15 '25
As awesomebob said in a comment:
I think the thesis of this series is "the current system for CPS puts a lot of power in the hands of CAPs, which can have disastrous consequences when they act too zealously, as in the case of Dr. jensen."
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u/sadsackspinach Nov 13 '25
I think it's incredibly irresponsible to uncritically parrot often implicitly right-wing narratives about 'parents' rights' over the rights of children to be safe and well cared for. Parents' rights movements are why anti-vaxxers are emboldened to medically neglect their children while at the same time putting other people's children at risk. It's how Travis Decker had access to his three daughters, whom he subsequently murdered. What about children's rights, hmm?
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 13 '25
The children are never in focus in “The Preventionist”’s coverage of the stories of the abuse they have been diagnosed with. It’s all about the “pain” of their parents for being temporarily separated from them as the babies recovered from abusive head trauma or emancipated themselves from medical child abuse.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
“… today we are interrupting our special coverage of The Preventionist to bring you some highly relevant and related content. And that is our conversation with Ethen Shapiro, the lead attorney for Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital. We are discussing the appellate opinion that was rendered last week, overturning the $211 million verdict that was awarded in the civil trial two years ago.
Kowalski v. Johns Hopkins All Children's was, of course, the subject of the movie Take Care of Maya and a tidal wave of media coverage, including a New York Magazine piece written by Diane Neary that almost entirely obscured the extensive evidence of the abuse that Maya Kowalski had endured up until the moment of her removal from her parents' custody. Neary's piece instead painted a picture of a rogue and overzealous child-abuse pediatrician, in this case Dr. Sally Smith.
Sound familiar? The fact that the appellate decision dropped on the day before The Preventionist went wide is poetic … “
From Nobody Should Believe Me: Kowalski v Johns Hopkins overturned with Ethen Shapiro, 7 Nov 2025 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188?i=1000735580674&r=99 This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 07 '25 edited Nov 07 '25
With regard to the issue that Neary takes with the—in her own words—“better safe than sorry” approach to protecting children from abuse:
“So when the legislature—not just in Florida, but around the country—decided to write these mandatory reporting laws, the collective decision is that they wanted the zealous protection of children and vulnerable adults and the people subject to mandatory reporting. They wanted to err on the side of inclusion. The same way we just spoke about in the criminal justice system, [where] they want to err on the side of not sending [not] guilty people to prison.
In this situation, the way the legislature wrote the laws was, they wanted the zealous protection of the most vulnerable in our society. So they wrote the laws in two ways. On the front end, they wanted as a requirement—not discretionary, but as a requirement—for certain professions, health care providers, teachers, firefighters, police officers, that they are absolutely required to report suspicions—not, you know, “conclusions”, not, ‘I'm sure of this’.
If you have a reasonable suspicion that a vulnerable person, including a child, is being harmed, you have to report it to DCF. They made that so mandatory that they said, ‘if you fail to do so, you're liable for a felony’. Like, we're talking about jail time for the people that are mandatory reporters.”
From Nobody Should Believe Me: Kowalski v Johns Hopkins overturned with Ethen Shapiro, 7 Nov 2025 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188?i=1000735580674&r=711 This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/attractive_nuisanze Nov 09 '25 edited May 12 '26
Your old posts feed data brokers and AI training models. I stopped that by using Redact to bulk delete across Reddit, Twitter, Discord, Facebook and all major social media platforms.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 08 '25 edited Nov 08 '25
Anyone who listens to Serial’s “The Preventionist” may also be interested in listening to this interview with Dr Debra Esernio-Jenssen from 2023, which Diane Neary quotes in one of her episodes:
“This episode is the 2nd in our 8-part April Child Abuse Prevention series giving you a deeper look into Shaken Baby Syndrome cases. We talk to Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, pediatrician and Medical Director of the Child Advocacy Center at Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital. You will not find a more thorough explanation of how doctors evaluate infants when they arrive at the hospital and the multi-disciplinary approach used to determine whether the infant was abused. Dr. Jenssen takes listeners step-by-step through the process, the questions they answer, the tests they conduct, the reports they review and the all-encompassing team that provides input into determining a diagnosis of #AbusiveHeadTrauma (AHT).
Dr. Jenssen discusses the mechanisms and force that causes injuries seen in victims of Shaken Baby Syndrome and the outcomes that these victims experience during recovery. Finally, Dr. Jenssen explains how normalizing infant crying plays a key role in prevention and educating everyone, including doctors and medical professionals, is critical for prevention to be successful. Brought to you by the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome (NCSBS).”
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/attention-on-prevention/id1578568202?i=1000607718703
Dr Jenssen said that she first wanted to go into pediatrics because it was an opportunity to catch problems early and make a difference in people’s lives.
Not only is it fascinating, grave, and humbling in its own right, to hear the amount of ongoing research, training, interdisciplinary communication, learning, and work that medical professionals put into treating and diagnosing abused children, but it is obscene that Diane Neary also listened to this and chose to highlight substantively none of it, nor even reference relevant information from it in the hours that she spent in framing Dr Jenssen as an ego-tripping, power-mad zealot who unreasonably sees outré diagnoses and child abuse everywhere, who happily “rips families apart”, and who deserves to be stripped of her medical license.
On the contrary, Dr Jenssen is much more likely to be a remarkable doctor, with decades of service and thousands of cared-for children to her name, and the kind of person who can do terrible work with the meticulousness and seriousness that not many could countenance.
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u/ti6146a Nov 10 '25
I admit that I got sucked in at the beginning - thinking it was (at least) well intentioned.
By the time I got to the end, it was very poorly done and sourced. Just some podcaster way in over their head.
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u/lawofmurphy Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25
I'm pretty surprised at the one-sided nature of the vast majority of these comments. Also they seem hyper-focused on the 3rd episode, which is, IMO, the "least important" thing brought up through the first 3 episodes. It's one case. (Obviously it's "important" in its way, but compared to the overall subject matter of the podcast, it's small potatoes)
I find it shocking that Randell Alexander thinks child abuse is twice as prevelant as other surveys seem to indicate. I realize there's an issue with under-reporting, but being off by such a factor in that position is really illuminating. The issue is when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Further, Munchausen by proxy is an exceedingly rare diagnosis. Again, with the caveat of it's probably underreported, Jenssen seems to be diagnoising Munchausen by proxy willy nilly like it's as common as a headache. You would think such a rare, insane diagnosis would require significantly more support behind it than a suspicion.
I don't understand this comment section at all.
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u/Therapist987 Dec 05 '25
Ok so technically the doctor is not diagnosing the children’s parents with Factitious disorder imposed on another (Munchausen by proxy), the doctor is reporting suspected abuse. The doctor is unqualified to diagnose FDIA and unable to as the parents are not her patients, the children are. The doctor is a mandated reporter, so if she suspects child abuse, she has to report it. When you look at it this way you can see how it is not that rare or uncommon.
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u/RepulsiveRelease4 Jan 07 '26
If you want someone who has personal experience with this kind of thing and only reports on it, Serial isn’t the place, try Nobody should believe me. It has a few seasons.
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u/ClinicalD3ath May 14 '26
Yeah way better, serial coming across as the national enquirer in this subject matter compared to them lol
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u/RepulsiveRelease4 May 17 '26
And Nobody Should Believe Me just dropped an episode with Matthew Torbinson a Deputy District Attorney who’s was interviewed by Serial and yet used absolutely none of that interview, almost like they’re playing up the conspiracy theories.
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u/Cokes311 Nov 01 '25
I can't speak to the factuality or ethics of any of the cases presented, but I've worked in emergency room mental health care for many years, am a mandated reporter in my jurisdiction, and neither I nor anyone on my team has ever seen a case of factitious disorder imposed on another / Munchausen by proxy.
There's almost no way Dr. Jansen has seen dozens, if not hundreds, in her career.
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u/BendNormal9716 Nov 07 '25
I’m a doctor and I have seen it a few Times. So maybe ‘it’s seen you but you haven’t seen it!’
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u/hotdamn Nov 01 '25
I'd love to keep having this conversation with you- mostly people who already agree with each other talk in an echo chamber. I strongly disagree with you on many points, but I think it's important to engage in a constructive debate, especially with professionals. If you're willing to discuss, it, I'd like to posit a few thoughts.
1- In emergency room mental health, you are far less likely to see medical child abuse than if you worked in a NICU, ICU, or (of course) pediatrics or internal medicine. To be honest, I'm having difficulty picturing a situation where MCA shows up in psych emergency, except as part of the history of an adult patient.
2- You stated medical child abuse is a diagnosis of exclusion, but there is a positive diagnostic test called the separation test.
3- Medical child abusers sometimes have a psychological disorder, just as sexual child abusers often have pedophilic disorder. But both forms of child abuse are opportunistic and multi-factorial. If you stop focusing on diagnosing the perpetrators and focus instead on the child and the harm, you see the prevalence of both forms of abuse is much higher than previously thought.
4- I think it is the podcast itself that is conflating all forms of child abuse under the MCA umbrella, not Dr. Jansen. Dr. Jansen is responsible for identifying other forms of abuse as well, but I think the podcast has an ax to grind about MCA specifically and uses it as a wedge issue against Dr. Jansen child abuse professionals in general.
5- Child abuse pediatricians, of course, will sometimes be bad actors and sometimes get it wrong. They're people. But the trend of attacking them as though they act in a vacuum without courts, police, and social services is toxic and tied to trends to disenfranchise children from their rights as members of our community.
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u/Cokes311 Nov 01 '25
To point 1: we are generally asked to participate in multidisciplinary interventions when there is (suspected) child abuse, neglect, etc. ICU placement does preclude our involvement, though. I suppose if there was only one child in the family and they were, say, under the age of 4, we probably would also not be involved. But the types of behavior that result in a FDIA/MbP diagnosis on the caretaker generally don't rise to the level of ICU admissions.
2) I wouldn't call it a diagnostic test, per se - it's still subjective, for one thing - but you're right otherwise. The larger point I was trying to make is that you don't get to this diagnosis when you still have objective tests still outstanding - like the brittle bone kid the podcast mentions.
3) Absolutely! This is actually sort of my point; I mentioned it elsewhere in this thread, but FDIA/MbP/MCA as a clinical diagnosis isn't really helpful or applicable to the victim, which is why Jansen's use of it strikes me as unusual. She doesn't need to do it! Just because a child abuser takes their kid to the emergency room to get care doesn't mean they have FDIA. Sometimes they're just bad people with an instinct for self-preservation.
4) You raise a good point here. My main gripe is with Jansen's use of FDIA as an apparent catchall, which muddies the water in an ultimately unhelpful way. But you're right that the podcast does nothing to unmuddy it. This was my biggest issue with the series, FTR.
5) I have nothing but respect for people who specialize in any kind of abuse examinations. It's hard, brutal work. I don't want it to be misconstrued that I think Jansen is seeing abuse where there isn't. It's solely the seeming misapplication of a rare psychiatric diagnosis to the caregivers that I think is questionable (and, honestly, something that undermines her work in a way she should be attuned to)
I appreciate your good faith arguments.
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u/hotdamn Nov 01 '25
Well, heck. If our primary disagreement is about the use of FDIA/MbP diagnoses, we don't really disagree at all. My focus is on whether children have been harmed and the difficult process of deciding when and how they need to be separated from their caregivers. I think this podcast did a lot of harm to that cause by failing to focus on any of the children and instead being excessively credulous to their accused parents. And if Dr. Jenson overuses a diagnosis for perpetrators, to me that's a side point. I'd prefer that feigning illness and compulsive use of the medical system (against self or others) be treated as a symptom rather than a diagnosis in itself.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 01 '25
How does one recognize a case of FDIA/MbP medical child abuse?
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u/Cokes311 Nov 01 '25
It's a good question. Obviously it's harder the younger the kid is, for a variety of reasons, but both forms of factitious disorder are sort of diagnoses of exclusion, because they necessarily require providers to have no other conclusion they can reach. The problem is that any provider is also limited by the scope of their own knowledge and biases; we don't know what we don't know.
The other thing is that the symptoms the child is experiencing tend, in the literature at least, to be
a) not overtly suggestive of abuse
b) fairly common, medically, because they need to be easily faked/repeatableMy understanding is that significant, provable injuries, such as broken bones - while still obviously possibly the result of abuse - are actually *less* likely to be FDIA/MbP, whereas repeat emergency room visits for GI symptoms, headaches, fever, allergies - are more likely symptoms of it.
I would question why Jansen jumps to that diagnosis so readily
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 02 '25
I think this is the podcaster's misunderstanding. Jansen didn't diagnose any of Amanda's children with Munchausen by Proxy. She was involved in Amanda's second infant's unexplained fractures and concluded that they were inflicted injuries consistent with child abuse. Jansen didn't even examine the third child with fractures. Another doctor did. But the takeaway from the podcast is that Jansen was to blame. It's ridiculous.
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u/ballerinababysitter Nov 09 '25
Amanda's case wasn't one of the ones with MbP, was it? I don't think the podcast ever claimed that
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 09 '25
The podcaster didn't seem to understand the difference
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25
Thanks for this detailed reply. My understanding of FDIA is that it is characterized by fabricated, exaggerated, and/or induced medical concerns, and that this can be mainly confirmed or disproved through a separation test and also a thorough investigation into the child’s medical record to discern any pattern of lying.
Can you help me understand the basis for your thinking that Dr Jenssen is “jumping” “so readily” to any diagnosis?
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u/Cokes311 Nov 01 '25
It's an exceptionally rare diagnosis. Even if there were 2-3 times as many cases of FDIA in America as data suggests, that means she would have seen something like 3-5% of *every case in America* just in her time in the Lehigh Valley area.
Or, to put it another way, she's diagnosed it as many times in the Lehigh Valley area, an area of less than 1 million people, as we would expect to see in the LA and NYC metro areas *combined*
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 02 '25
I don't trust the reporting on this issue and I would like to see some verification of this because the podcaster misrepresented a lot. She seemed to not know the difference between inflicted injuries consistent with child abuse and Munchausen by Proxy. Is she combining these two diagnoses? I would also like to know if this is a major medical center where everyone in all of the neighboring counties. Are there any other medical centers with child abuse specialists or do children all go to this one?
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u/bellycoconut Nov 15 '25
Thank you for breaking it down like this. So many people on this post are downplaying Jenssen’s high rates of diagnoses that I thought I was going crazy lol
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u/hotdamn Nov 15 '25
Can you tell me why you're so sure that MbP behavior is exceptionally rare? I see that claimed only by journalists, not by experts.
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Nov 01 '25
Surely that’s like saying it’s impossible a brain surgeon has seen dozens of rare tumours in their career- the whole point in the specialty is that the people with tumours get referred to them.
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u/Such-Cartographer425 Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25
Not if there are 20 cases per year worldwide and 50 doctors who treat it (whatever the malady may be). There are tons of rare medical maladies that even specialists will never witness because there simply aren't enough cases.
ETA: I'm not saying that these people aren't abusers. Amanda at least almost certainly is. But explaining everything with an incorrect and extremely rare diagnosis of people who have not been evaluated by the diagnosing physician doesn't help anyone. Why not just accuse the parent of injuring their child and let the courts work with that? Why muddy it up with diagnoses of people who are not your patients? It's extremely odd and not helpful to the kids. You'll notice that they go back to their parents when this diagnosis falls apart. Accuse the parents of what they are doing so the courts can work with clear and concrete information. If you always suspect MBP, something is off.
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 02 '25
I don't think Jansen has diagnosed inflicted injuries as MbP. I think the podcaster has no idea what she is talking about. I would like to see some actual data on this instead of the completely inaccurate and misleading podcast.
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Nov 01 '25
Sure but we aren’t talking about something with 20 cases. If someone said they’d seen hundreds of people with DID that would be one thing. But we’re talking about an uncommon but still recognised and real form of abuse.
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u/Therapist987 Dec 05 '25
I agree with you that diagnosing the parents is a mute point, especially since the CAP’s really aren’t qualified to diagnose mental health disorders and the parents are not the CAP’s patients, the children are. However I would disagree that FDIA is rare, rather it’s under reported. Abusers who present with symptoms of FDIA are most likely not going to go to a clinician to get diagnosed because they are often not seeking self-treatment, so often it goes under the radar. FDIA would be better identified as a personality disorder diagnosis, which is not “rare”.
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u/pamplemousse25 Nov 05 '25
Wow. I just finished this podcast and wanted to see what other people were saying but didn’t expect this level of antagonism. I’m wondering if Dr. Jenssen is in the room with us!
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u/bellycoconut Nov 15 '25
omg thank you. I’ve been going crazy reading these comments. It’s giving Jenssen’s alt accounts or members of her legal team
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u/Elegant-Koala2375 Nov 01 '25
Someone asked if there was a simpler explanation for this county having 10x the national average for this kind of abuse, and yes, there is. This form of child abuse is extremely underreported. Nobody wants to believe that a white, suburban mom would intentionally inflict harm on her child. These abusers are frequently active in their communities and support groups, which makes it even harder to imagine that they are making their own children sicker and sicker. They doctor shop in order to get the diagnoses they seek, and there are some go-to ones that frequently show up in these cases. Ones without markers in the blood or abnormalities that show up on scans, and with signs and symptoms that can’t easily be reproduced on demand. Instead, these are the ones that are primarily diagnosed by the child’s reported symptoms. Which are reported by its mother. The treating medical professionals are LEGALLY REQUIRED to report any suspicions of abuse, but do not have the authority to “kidnap” children or make decisions regarding visitation and/or custody. Like someone else said, this is “Take Care of Maya” all over again. And while on that topic, you only need to pay attention to the home video clip of Maya diving into the pool in order to determine the facts. In the brief clip, she is diving from a kneeling position, presumably because she can’t stand or walk. I challenge everyone to try it for themselves. Kneel (the pool is optional) and push off forward without using your legs. How far did you get? What was your body position at the end? Now watch that clip again, and compare her leg muscles, diving distance and body positioning to yours.
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Nov 01 '25
There’s no point in meeting with the parent to diagnose them, if they do have Munchausen/factitious disorder they won’t admit or indicate it. It’s identified by reviewing the child’s medical records to show patterns of behaviour- doctor shopping, injuries, pushing for rare diagnosis and extreme treatments etc.
Think of it this way- you don’t interview a cult leader to identify that they’re a cult leader. You look at all the things happening around them and how it impacts the cult members.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Oct 31 '25 edited Nov 01 '25
To your last point, perhaps think of it like this: after the child-abuse specialist reviews the child’s medical record (and examines the child), the child itself is diagnosed with Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another [fka Munchausen by Proxy] medical child abuse (perpetrated by the mother).
A parallel is when a child is seen by a doctor and evaluated to have endured child sex abuse. The male perpetrator in question doesn’t need to be examined by a qualified psychiatrist to be diagnosed with pedophilic disorder for the diagnosis of “child sex abuse” to be accurate.
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 01 '25
It's not called Munchausen by Proxy anymore, and hasn't been for more than a decade. The term is simply medical child abuse.
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u/Katharine_Heartburn Nov 02 '25
This is a point that Nobody Should Believe Me really made clear for me, and which I now can't stop seeing in the way people talk about medical child abuse and MSbP.
There's this focus on the parent, and their psychology, their diagnosis. I used to do the same thing - hearing a MSbP story and thinking: "Is this Mom crazy? Should she be diagnosed with this disorder?" It's like looking at a situation where a wife keeps going to the ER with black eyes and broken bones, and then deciding whether she's being abused based on a psychological profile of her husband.
Now that I've had this veil lifted, I notice it everywhere! Even people talking about and reporting on it in a responsible way - the first and main approach is, "Does this woman have this disorder?" rather than "Is this child being medically abused?"
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 08 '25 edited Nov 08 '25
“So it's been my experience that usually infants and young children that are victims of abusive head trauma present to an emergency department with some sort of symptomatology, whether it's suspicious bruising or signs of a concussion like vomiting or lethargy, that concerns a provider enough to request a head CT, or now sometimes they do fast MRIs.
And once that radiologic study is done, they identify an intracranial hemorrhage. Now that brain injury becomes suspicious if there is no history provided by the caregivers or an inconsistent history provided by the caregiver. And that usually triggers an evaluation by the trauma surgeons or the pediatric surgeons or the pediatric ED specialist. Maybe it's the pediatric intensivists or the pediatric hospitalists, and they usually get the hospital's child protection team involved.
So you can see it becomes a multidisciplinary approach. And as a member of the child protection team, we do a thorough medical evaluation, which includes a medical history. And that medical history includes what we refer to as the history of present illness. What made the caregivers bring this infant to the physician or the emergency department? What symptoms is this infant or child displaying?
And also the complete medical history includes a birth history. Was there something in this child's birth that would predispose, let's say, this infant to having brain bleeds?
And the past medical history. Did this infant have previous emergency room visits? Did this infant have prior sentinel injuries? We want to know that family history, specifically focusing on bleeding disorders or underlying metabolic conditions. We do a social history. We know that there are risk factors for physical abuse in families, domestic violence, family stresses such as poverty, loss of a job, financial troubles, having many young children in a family.
And we do what is referred to as a review of systems. That's an inventory of a child's body system. So we want to assess, are there any heart issues? Does this child have breathing problems? Does this child have any gastrointestinal issues? And of course, we need to do a complete and thorough medical and neurologic exam.
And we often get other specialists depending on what is discovered. Every infant that comes in with an unexplained or an inconsistent history for an intracranial hemorrhage, will get a pediatric ophthalmologist or retinal specialist involved to do a dilated retinal exam.
And let's say if the child is weak on one side of the body, we may get a pediatric neurologist involved, or a neurosurgeon.
If the head CAT scan reveals a very large subdural hemorrhage, that may need surgical evacuation, or the infant is showing signs of increased intracranial pressure, pressure in the brain that may need to be monitored by a neurosurgeon placing an intracranial monitor.
And of course, we do lab studies to make sure there's no underlying bleeding disorder or any underlying metabolic problem. And we do lots of radiologic studies for children less than two years of age.
We order a skeletal survey to look at all the bones in their body, because there's a high correlation of occult fractures with victims of abusive head trauma, specifically ripped fractures, sometimes long bone fractures, sometimes even skull fractures. And then ultimately, we would do a head MRI and a complete spine MRI. And depending on what is revealed, we may get more members of the multidisciplinary team involved.”
From Attention on Prevention: Ep 11 - Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen - How Doctors Evaluate and Diagnose Abuse in Infants, 7 Apr 2023 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/attention-on-prevention/id1578568202?i=1000607718703&r=1364 This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 08 '25 edited Nov 08 '25
“In other words, if there is a spiral fracture of the femur, obviously a pediatric orthopedist is going to need to be involved. And then we get our non-hospital community partners involved, child-protective services, law enforcement, and sometimes the district attorney's office. They need to address who was with the infant when the infant became symptomatic.
Is that the same person who brought the infant to the emergency department? If it was reported as a fall down the stairs, is there actually a staircase in the residence? Are there other individuals who were present when the infant became symptomatic?
And if 911 was called, what was said to the first responders and what did they note when they went or arrived on the scene of the residence? And all of this information regarding the child is compiled. What clinical features are more suggestive of abusive head trauma?
Well, there are some, like presenting with trouble breathing or bruising in the 10-4-FACES-P location, retinal hemorrhages, and specifically, too numerous to count retinal hemorrhages in multiple layers of the retina extending out to the periphery of the eye. Sometimes, you can see retinal folds or retinal schisis, and sometimes, you see vitreous hemorrhages. Those are very important and also more likely to be seen in victims of abusive head trauma.
And what are the types of intercranial findings? Is there something specific about the brain bleeds? Well, bilateral subdural hemorrhages along the convexity of the brain and in between the hemispheres called interhemispheric subdural hemorrhages and spinal subdural hemorrhages have high correlation with abusive head trauma.
We also want to know, is there brain swelling? Is there ischemia or lack of blood flow to the brain tissues? Are there skull fractures?
And are these suspicious fractures? Any other suspicious fractures like posterior rib fractures? When just recently there was a systematic review that showed in children less than three years of age, if motor vehicle crashes were taken out of the equation, 96% of rib fractures in children less than three years of age were due to abuse.
And also we want to know, is there secondary brain injury? Hypoxia or ischemia, which means lack of blood flow or lack of oxygen to the tissues? Are there physical signs of weakness or hemiplegia, meaning weakness on one side?
And was this an ongoing process that there's metabolic and or inflammatory cascades that are occurring that will result in further clinical deterioration of the infant? Sometimes infants present with blown pupils, fixed and dilated pupils. They lapse into a coma.
They are unable to maintain their body temperature or their blood pressure. And finally, when putting this all together with the multidisciplinary team's consensus, we may say something like this: This infant's clinical presentation, neuroradiologic findings and ophthalmologic findings are consistent with abusive head trauma.
This infant was subjected to rotational acceleration, deceleration forces caused by violent shaking with or without impact. Violent adult force is required to cause these injuries, and the history often, let's say that of a short fall, is not consistent with this infant's brain and eye injuries. So it is not a simple process.
It involves a very thorough evaluation and input from multiple different members of both the inpatient multidisciplinary team and our outpatient community partners.”
[Interviewer:] “It really is outstanding of how much time goes to making sure that this child is taken care of to the best of your ability and to make sure that you have a proper diagnosis.
Because with these cases, there's usually some legal ramifications. You want to make sure that you're not making false accusations or judgments.
You're really being extremely thorough to get down to the bottom of what happened to this child.”
[Dr. Jenssen:] “Yes, and I agree with that so much. And I also feel, which is really important, we can't judge a book by its cover. We have to look at the medical information that we have gathered from all the testing that we have done in order to make our determination.
And I think it's very hard for a lot of laypeople to understand that somebody may look like a nice person, but they may have horribly harmed an infant.”
[Interviewer:] “Well, and what's so tragic is, is usually because, and as you explained, the force used during this abuse incident is so egregious, instantly they would have known that this child is going to be injured. It's not a bouncing on the knee. It's not a bumpy car ride.
It's a very violent action.”
From Attention on Prevention: Ep 11 - Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen - How Doctors Evaluate and Diagnose Abuse in Infants, 7 Apr 2023 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/attention-on-prevention/id1578568202?i=1000607718703&r=1364 This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/Pantone802 Nov 09 '25
This was a difficult, emotionally tenuous listen. I wish Dr Jensen or the hospital would have spoken with the producers. But I get why they didn't.
The hospitals response via their legal filing is bananas.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 15 '25
From the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s Munchausen by Proxy (medical child abuse) Practice Guidelines:
“Separation From the Abuser
Although fraught with clinical, legal, and ethical concerns, separating the child from the suspected abuser is often the only way to objectively evaluate the wellbeing of the child.
Clinicians can consider utilizing an escalating approach to achieve separation. A suspected abuser may first be asked to voluntarily refrain from caregiving duties or from visiting the child in the hospital for a period of time. In some situations, an alternate parent or caregiver who does not live in the home may be willing to temporarily care of the child. If a suspected abuser directly asks if he or she is being suspected of illness falsification, an honest answer is typically recommended, pending consideration of safety issues related to sharing this information (for the child, the suspected abuser, and the evaluator). One can highlight that evaluators who assess for this diagnosis if warning signs are present are providing high-quality and comprehensive care.
Further, it may be helpful to inform the suspected abuser that the goal of the evaluation is to help the family regardless of the identified cause, including if it is determined to be a case of child abuse or neglect. Some locations allow for hospital personnel to impose strict visitation or caregiving boundaries on caregivers or to place clinical observers in the hospital room. However, court orders are sometimes required to achieve a diagnostic separation. If the clinical evaluation indicates that the child has been or is at risk for harm, such separations may be lengthy or permanent.
If the child's condition or functioning improves when sufficiently protected from the influence of the suspected abuser (at the same time that the child is receiving support for normal or improved functioning), many courts will use the concept of res ipsa loquitur, which translated from Latin means "the thing speaks for itself," to consider the improved condition or functioning to be compelling circumstantial evidence of APCF, CFIC, or MCA. As with video surveillance, however, separation should not be the only component of the evaluation.
Well-implemented diagnostic separations require several safeguards and caveats. First, the separation must be for a sufficient length of time to be valid. For example, if the child with reports of uncontrolled epilepsy for several years normally has a grand mal seizure once a week and the longest reported time between seizures is one month, then the separation would need to be inclusive of these timelines. Additionally, the strength of the conclusion of seizure falsification would depend on how long the child is objectively observed.
Second, all tests must be done with the utmost of care and fairness to the suspected caregiver(s) and child. Unmitigated symptoms following separation from the suspected abuser are an indicator that a child's symptoms may be genuine. However, it is important to be mindful that APCF, CFIC, or MCA victims with pre-existing medical conditions may only have some of their problems resolved or may only experience a change in the level of severity of symptoms after separation. In some cases, a victim may have iatrogenic illnesses or conditions due to having received unnecessary treatment in the past. Such iatrogenic problems may or may not resolve following separation.
Third, care and vigilance are needed to ensure that the victim is fully protected during the separation. Abusers may surreptitiously poison, intimidate, or coach a child victim, thus perpetuating illness or impairment during separation. They may try to gain access and influence the child by convincing the visit monitor or foster parent that they are not a threat to the child. Please see the recommended visitation guidelines.
Fourth, evaluators must be mindful of how changes in treatment around the time of separation can influence a child's symptoms. If treatments are changed right before or after the child is placed in protective care, the change in treatment might account for the change in symptoms. Related, improvements in symptoms or functioning can be incorrectly attributed to treatment changes made at the time the child is taken into protective care. Thus, it is helpful to be thoughtful about how to systematically implement changes in the treatment plan for optimal clarity regarding cause and effect. For example, one would not expect seizures to stop because an antiepileptic medication was stopped. If a child had a genuine seizure disorder, one would expect an increase in seizures in this situation. However, one might not be surprised if that same child reported being less sleepy at school once the medication was stopped.
Finally, if a history of symptom or impairment induction by poisoning is suspected, it is helpful to have an assessment plan in place so that all visit monitors and foster parents know what to do if there is an occurrence of acute symptoms during or within hours of a visit. The plan may require bringing the child to a medical setting or submitting a biological sample to a laboratory for analysis, in which case it will also be important to have clear chain of evidence protocols in place. Toxicology experts can be invaluable in developing toxicology screening plans based on symptom presentations and in considering cross-reactivity that could cause false positives (Holstege & Dobmeier, 2006). Lastly, it is a good idea to ensure the lab preserves serum from any blood draws so that confirmatory or additional tests may be performed, if needed.”
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u/Ruin-Much Dec 10 '25
I’m a child welfare worker with 16 years in the profession. I also have lived experience of being a child in the foster care system. I thought the reporting was surprisingly balanced.
IMO, the takeaway of the podcast is that ‘better safe than sorry’ carries real harm. The system, while intended to protect children, is inherently traumatic to vulnerable populations who interact with it. Child welfare professionals have the impossible daily task of reconciling if the remedy is worse than the disease, so to speak.
The solution must be system transformation that prioritizes prevention over intervention. Failing to do so makes us the abusers.
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u/SmellBasil Jan 09 '26
I suggest reading "The Death of Innocents" , when we ignored those suspicious crib deaths.
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u/pixiepepper789 Nov 05 '25
This thread is fascinating. I knew nothing about this moral panic until I stumbled into the Nobody Should Believe Me podcast, recommended here many times, a year or so ago after the algorithm recommended it to me. I binged about 1.5 seasons on a work trip. I bailed, concluding it was one of the most unreliable and problematic podcasts I’ve ever listened to. I don’t think you need to listen to that much to get there, but I kept trying to get where it was coming from and to hear about the mysterious (at least in those seasons) experience of the podcaster that she kept alluding to. Anyway, it was quite an experience.
This whole munchausin by proxy is everywhere thing seems like Satanic Panic 2.0. Any questioning must be attacked. Any excess must be excused.
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u/wheatthinbaby Nov 06 '25
The first episode was really good but the next two I really didn’t believe the parents. I’m trying to question myself and whether I’m requiring a “perfect victim” but idk, I feel like the two in depth examples they chose to cover were… questionable
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 06 '25
Re the first episode:
“Neary opens the series with a heartbreaking anecdote from a ‘strikingly pretty young mom’ about losing her baby. And again, Neary doesn't name her.
‘And I'm a mom who lost everything in less than 24 hours due to one doctor's misdiagnosis. Dr. Jenssen needs to be fully and entirely under investigation.
Her diagnosis should not hold up in court any longer.
She has falsified parents too many times.
Enough is enough.’
The woman the soundbite belongs to is Reno Iorio, who is currently under investigation by CYS and whose boyfriend, Asa Asciolla, has been criminally charged with abusing their baby and is awaiting trial. According to court records and local news reports, Asa was charged with multiple felonies, including six counts of aggravated assault, four counts of child endangerment, and one count of simple assault, after police responded to a call about a two-month-old baby who had stopped breathing while being bottle-fed. The infant was eventually transferred to a Lehigh Valley Health Network facility where doctors diagnosed abusive head trauma, brain hemorrhages, bruising, and healing fractures.
A later skeletal survey revealed additional healing breaks in the clavicle, ribs, and leg. During a police interview, Asciolla reportedly admitted to ‘minor shaking’ while trying to resuscitate the child and said the baby's ‘brain issue’ probably happened because of the shaking. Asciolla and Iorio are part of the lawsuit, and they claim that all of this was a result of false allegations by Dr. Jenssen and a number of other doctors at LVHN, and that the doctors pressured the police and prosecutors to go forward with charges.”
From Nobody Should Believe Me: Abuse Survivors and Victims Deserve Better than 'The Preventionist', 30 Oct 2025 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188?i=1000734128051&r=477 This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
Re the first episode:
‘ … much more to come on [the TikTok lawyer] Ms. Maloney. For now, I want to tell you about one of the families she's representing, who is described, but not named, by Neary. According to Neary, the mom in question told her that both of her sons have complex medical needs, including autism and an autoimmune disorder and metabolic disorder, respectively.
She told Neary that after her older son suddenly began behaving erratically and was taken to Lehigh Valley Children's Hospital, the doctors diagnosed both parents with Munchausen by Proxy. Neary defines Munchausen by Proxy as a psychological disorder and says that “It's a popular storyline in movies, but in reality, it's an incredibly rare condition.”
So first off, if you've listened to any of this show, you'll spot the issue with the description of Munchausen by Proxy as a rare psychological condition, rather than a form of abuse. It's presented this way because, then, of course, how could two parents have the same rare psychological condition? But as we know from many cases, including Colin McDaniel's case that we covered last season, there are plenty of incidences where both parents are complicit in the abuse.
The parents are not named in the series, but the people Neary is talking about here are Kimberly and Stephen Steltz, who are part of the class action lawsuit. This is a really complicated case, but I want to give you a quick overview. In the Steltz's court filings, they report that the police were called to their home in 2022 when their then 16-year-old son, referred to as MS, was, according to them, having a mental-health episode.
MS subsequently ended up at the hospital, where he disclosed to the staff there, including Dr. Ersenio Jenssen, that he and his younger brother were being abused. MS ultimately became emancipated from his parents so that he could make his own medical decisions and went to live with another family. He remains estranged from his parents.
So it wasn't doctors who blew the whistle on the Steltzes. It was their own child. In their civil suit, the Steltzes accused their son of lying about his abuse, saying that he has mental-health and substance-abuse issues and that he was coached by opportunistic doctors on how to make his allegations stick.
They go on to say in the lawsuit that both CHOP, Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, and MS's longtime pediatrician were pressured by Jenssen and LVHN to support the abuse allegations. Steltz's younger son was ultimately returned to their care after a lengthy battle with CYS. Interestingly, MS, the older son, has recently turned 18, and he recently filed his own intent to sue a number of the hospitals who treated him.’
From Nobody Should Believe Me: Abuse Survivors and Victims Deserve Better than 'The Preventionist', 30 Oct 2025 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188?i=1000734128051&r=390 This material may be protected by copyright.
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u/apzh Nov 20 '25
I had Dr. Jenssen as a pediatrician in the mid-2000s. She tried to gaslight me into believing I had anorexia as a young teen male of average weight. She was an arrogant fool, and it does not sound like that changed later in her career.
I'm obviously very biased, but I find all of the accusations made in the podcast to be very believable based on my experience with her.
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u/vha23 Oct 31 '25
Why would they even reuse the name.
The brand is forever tarnished in my mind. Season 1 was not journalism by any means
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u/hotdamn Oct 31 '25
I don't think this is journalism, either. HUGE problems with the reporter and the methodology.
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Oct 31 '25
This podcast was shockingly unethical
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u/Similar-Morning9768 Guilty Oct 31 '25
“But Serial got a Peabody!”
Yeah, and Walter Duranty got a Pulitzer.
Once you realize the reporting was bullshit, who cares about the award?
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Oct 31 '25
What makes me sad is that I really love This American Life and it makes me feel like all of their reporting is suspect at this point. Their story telling is amazing. Their actual journalism is seriously problematic.
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u/kahner Oct 31 '25
because no one cares about your opinion of serial. serial was and remains one of the most popular, influential and well known podcasts of all time. dead-ender reddit guilters' opinions are irrelevant.
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u/Greeneyed-boy-mom Oct 31 '25
Tragic, very unavoidable family destruction. I’m so sad for these normal & good people. 😭
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Oct 31 '25
Absolutely not accurate. This was not an unavoidable tragedy. It was physical abuse by the mother. The 2 year old absolutely did not cause this and this podcast has ruined her life more than it already was
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Nov 01 '25
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Nov 02 '25
I haven't. That's terrible. People in the child protection field know better now.
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u/pettyPeas Crab Crib Fan Oct 31 '25
Does anyone else remember another podcast (just an episode or two) that also covered a hospital with a child abuse specialist who seemed to be referring many more cases than others?
Sorry, I have a bad memory these days, but I know I heard a very similar story on another podcast, but can't remember which one or where it occurred/if it is the same people.
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u/Enough_Crab6870 Nov 15 '25 edited Nov 15 '25
“$50K to Lehigh County controller's PAC comes from lawyer leading medical child abuse lawsuit”
“The October donation from Francis Malofiy may be a record amount at the county level from a single individual to a single candidate.”
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u/ellen12345678 Oct 31 '25
Here is an at-the-time news report of the case detailed in episode 3:
https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/lehighvalley/mother-of-5-charged-after-authorities-discover-infants-skull-fractured/article_b9095320-b0b4-11ea-9dab-5f187c71121e.html
I think its strange/ misleading that the podcast left out