Acknowledging our fallibility
By Haezreena Begum Abdul Hamid
Forgotten Baby Syndrome is a term used to describe a situation in which a caregiver unconsciously “loses” awareness that a child is still inside a vehicle and exits the car as part of an ordinary daily routine. It is not a medical diagnosis, but a phenomenon studied in cognitive psychology and neuroscience as a form of fatal distraction. In simple terms, it refers to a failure of human memory under conditions of stress, fatigue, and disrupted routines. Yet each time such a tragedy occurs, public reaction is almost uniform: how could a mother or father possibly “forget” their own child? In legal terms, this question is quickly framed as criminal negligence. From a criminological perspective, however, it calls for a deeper reflection on how human fragility, modern life pressures, and failures of preventive systems converge to produce unimaginable harm.
What happened recently in Seremban was not the first such incident. Malaysia has recorded several similar cases, marked by a recurring pattern. In Port Dickson in 2018, a two-year-old child died after being left in a car for several hours. In Sungai Petani in 2020, a four-year-old child died after being left in a car for nearly ten hours at the father’s workplace, reportedly because the child was asleep in the back seat and the daily routine had changed.
In Kuala Muda in 2021, a nearly four-year-old child was found left in a car for more than four hours in front of a kindergarten. In Shah Alam in 2024, a five-year-old child died after being believed to have been left in a car parked at a hospital. In Gua Musang in 2025, a four-year-old child was reported to have died from heatstroke after being found unconscious in a vehicle. When cases recur with almost identical narratives such as “forgotten,” “routine changed,” “the child was asleep,” or “busy with work”, we must acknowledge that this is not merely an individual issue. It is an issue of human behaviour under pressure, and of systemic prevention.
The data supports this reality. According to the Journal of the Society for Automotive Engineers Malaysia (JSAEM), between 2012 and 2024 at least 17 children in Malaysia died after being left alone in vehicles, most due to heatstroke. During a similar period, more than 2,500 cases of children trapped in vehicles were recorded by the Malaysian Fire and Rescue Department. Globally, the pattern is not very different.
In the United States, child deaths from vehicular heatstroke have been systematically recorded. The No Heatstroke database, widely used by safety researchers, recorded more than 1,000 child deaths since 1998 as of 2026, averaging about 37 deaths per year. What is most unsettling is the background of the caregivers involved: many are loving parents, functioning well in society, even professionals. This pattern challenges the stereotype that child deaths in adult care are typically the result of abuse or malicious intent.
Neuropsychologists explain this phenomenon through the conflict between two memory systems: habit memory, which drives daily routines on “autopilot,” and prospective memory, which reminds us to carry out intended actions later, such as dropping a child off at daycare. Under certain conditions such as changes in routine, haste, lack of sleep, stress, phone interruptions, or work pressure, “habit” memory can override “prospective” memory. As we continue driving as usual, the brain may “shut down” the reminder that an additional stop was supposed to be made. This is not a matter of lack of love, but a cognitive failure that can happen to anyone.
Criminology does not deny individual responsibility. However, it also rejects overly simplistic explanations that such tragedies occur because parents are “bad” or “uncaring”. From a criminological lens, these events arise from the interaction of three dimensions: human cognitive fragility, the structural pressures of modern life, and failures in preventive systems. Parents today live in high-intensity economies, with long working hours, extended commutes, and heavy emotional and mental burdens. All of these create a high-risk environment for human error. When safety depends entirely on individual memory, predictable cognitive failure will continue to produce tragedy.
In the Malaysian legal context, leaving a child in conditions that endanger their life or health may be investigated as child neglect or abuse. Section 31(1)(a) of the Child Act 2001 provides that any person who abuses, neglects, abandons, or exposes a child in a manner likely to cause physical or emotional injury commits an offence. Upon conviction, the offender may be sentenced to imprisonment for up to ten years and fined up to RM20,000. This provision reflects how seriously the state views child safety as an absolute adult responsibility.
Yet the existence of strict laws should not prevent us from understanding the true context behind such tragedies. Punishment exists to protect children and deter negligence, but effective prevention requires more than legal threats alone. It demands public awareness, social support, and systemic change in response to the pressures faced by working parents. Without comprehensive preventive efforts, we will continue to see the same cases repeated, with almost identical scripts and the same heartbreaking endings.
This is where an important criminological category emerges: harm without malice which is a type of serious harm that occurs without criminal intent. The absence of intent does not mean the absence of responsibility, but it requires a more mature way of thinking about social and legal responses. An overly punitive approach carries two major risks. First, it creates an illusion of safety, as though such tragedies only happen to “careless parents,” not to “us”. Second, it stifles preventive discourse. When cases are framed solely as individual moral failure, attention shifts to punishment rather than to building safer systems.
Preventive criminology teaches that injury and harm often occur not merely because of malicious intent, but because of opportunity, systemic weakness, and predictable human error. Just as with road accidents, we no longer rely solely on the advice “drive more carefully”. We build seatbelts, airbags, traffic lights, speed limits, and safer road designs. We reduce reliance on human perfection.
The same principle must apply here: cultivating routines of checking the back seat every time one exits a car, placing essential items such as bags or access cards in the rear seat to interrupt autopilot, mandating daycare and school policies to contact caregivers when a child does not arrive, and encouraging vehicle technologies that genuinely detect a child’s presence rather than offering merely symbolic reminders.
The legal question remains important: should such negligence be punished as a crime? The answer is not black and white. It requires contextual assessment such as degree of negligence, prior behavioural patterns, responses after the incident, and whether systemic neglect was involved. Punishment alone does not bring a lost child back. But safer systems can save the next one.
Forgotten Baby Syndrome reminds us that death and injury do not always arise from malicious intent. Some arise from human fragility in a world that is too fast and too demanding. The task of society is not merely to punish after a life is lost, but to build a safety ecology that acknowledges human fallibility, and recognises that children’s lives are far too precious to be left to memory alone.
Dr Haezreena Begum Abdul Hamid is a Criminologist and Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya and may be reached at haezreena@um.edu.my