A 35-year-old woman from Deerlijk has been charged with the manslaughter of her two children and the attempted manslaughter of a third child.
The case dates back to 2014 and 2015, when the woman, identified as M.V., lost two babies: a daughter who died at seven months old and a son who died after just a few weeks. More than 10 years ago, she gave interviews, including to Het Nieuwsblad, about the deaths of her children and organised a benefit event in their memory.
In a later interview, she said the deaths had been caused by a rare genetic disorder in which signals from the heart were not passed to the brain, causing the heart to stop.
However, in March last year, she was again taken to the UZ hospital in Ghent with a five-week-old baby after the child developed serious breathing problems.
Doctors were unable to find a clear medical explanation for the baby’s condition or determine what had happened at home.
One of the doctors became suspicious and contacted the public prosecutor’s office. The West Flanders prosecutor’s office confirmed to Het Nieuwsblad that an investigation is under way.
Investigators are said to regard one detail as particularly significant: in the case of the third child, a genetic disorder linked to the mother is considered impossible.
The boy was born following IVF treatment using an egg cell from her partner rather than from M.V. herself, meaning there could be no genetic link between mother and child.
The woman has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter over the deaths in 2014 and 2015 and charged with attempted manslaughter in relation to the 2025 case.
According to Het Nieuwsblad, the suspect is now at home under electronic monitoring and denies all allegations.
