child neglect is described as the failure of a parent or a custodian liable for the child's care to make sufficient food, clothing, protection, supervision, and/or medical care available for the child. In the United States, child neglect is the most commonly recognized type of child mistreatment and abuse. The theoretical definition of child neglect by Polansky is generally acknowledged which states child neglect as "a condition in which a caretaker responsible for the child, either deliberately or by extraordinary inattentiveness, permits the child to experience avoidable present suffering and/or fails to provide one or more of the ingredients generally deemed essential for developing a person's physical, intellectual, and emotional capacities" (Pagelow, 1984).

Mother is commonly considered as the neglectful parent. Polansky and his colleagues identified the distinctive mental characteristics of neglectful mothers and categorized them into five separate types i.e. impulse-ridden mothers, apathetic-futile mothers, mothers suffering from reactive depression,...
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