A 27-year-old mother has admitted causing the death of her 22-month-old daughter who died at the family's St Kilda home in May.
The woman was originally charged with murder and the charge was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in the Dunedin District Court yesterday.
But instead, Crown prosecutor Robin Bates asked for the murder charge to be withdrawn and replaced with one of infanticide.
That charge says the woman committed infanticide by causing the death of the girl on May 26 in a manner amounting to culpable homicide, but that she could not be held fully responsible because of the extent to which the balance of her mind was disturbed "by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to a child".
She pleaded guilty and was remanded on bail to December 18 for sentence in the High Court.
At the request of the woman's lawyer, Anne Stevens, Judge Mary O'Dwyer agreed to extend the order for name suppression because of the psychiatric matters involved.
No summary of facts was available yesterday.
Asked about the likely sentence for such an offence, Mr Bates later told the Otago Daily Times the maximum penalty for infanticide was three years' jail.
But research presented to the High Court in an infanticide case last year indicated non-custodial sentences were generally imposed.
And Mrs Stevens said that, in her 20 years as a lawyer, she knew of only two infanticide cases, both in Dunedin.
They were the present case and that of Patricia Golovale-Siaosi, a 22-year-old student whose baby died after being born in a Dunedin student hostel toilet in May 2006.
She was charged with manslaughter but later pleaded guilty to a substituted charge of infanticide.
Child, Youth and Family, which began a full review of its involvement with the St Kilda family after the mother was charged with murder, declined to comment yesterday.
A spokesman said the department would not comment on the case until sentencing.
In a statement to the ODT in June, CYF confirmed it was "actively working" with the family at the time the child died.
• Infanticide
A relatively uncommon Crimes Act charge, available in cases where a mother has caused the death of a child up to the age of 10 years but cannot be held fully responsible for her actions because her mind is disturbed by the effect of childbirth.
