Overlaying

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

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

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

References

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