Mother took son’s blood

A DANISH court on Thursday sentenced a mother to four years in jail for aggravated abuse for having unnecessarily drawn a half-litre (one pint) of blood from her son weekly for five years.

A trained nurse, the 36year-old woman began drawing her son’s blood when he was 11 months old, averaging about once a week for the next five years.

A court-ordered psychiatric report said she suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental condition where caregivers make a child ill to attract attention to themselves.