UNDER Victorian law, infanticide is a crime that can only be committed by women.

Legally it involves the death of a child under the age of 2 at the hands of a mother whose mental balance is disturbed because she has failed to fully recover from the birth.

It can also apply where the mother is suffering a disorder consequent on her giving birth to that child.

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While murder carries a maximum term of life imprisonment, infanticide has a five-year maximum.

But it is believed no Victorian woman has ever been jailed for admitting a single count of infanticide.

Sentences have ranged from good behaviour bonds to lengthy community corrections orders.

One woman who killed her newborn with a single blow was freed and wished well by a Supreme Court judge who said more needed to be done to support new mums.

Post-natal depression is often blamed for crimes of infanticide.

The global Marcé Society for Perinatal Mental Health, a body formed to advance the understanding of mental health around the time of child birth, say it occurs in seven per cent of women.

Severe depression is often undetected and untreated by health services with devastating consequences for mothers and children, they say.