FINANCE manager Joyce Tan Lee Mei had a baby girl last October, but she will be in jail for the child's first birthday.

She was sentenced to six months behind bars on Aug 13 after hitting her 25-year-old Indonesian maid with a belt and a bamboo pole.

Tan, 43, is one of five women who have appeared in court over the past two years for abusing their maids while suffering from post-natal depression.

The court accepted Tan's condition as a mitigating factor.

'The surrounding circumstances and objective facts are consistent with Joyce Tan's plea in mitigation that her assaults on Purnari were out-of-character and were contributed to by her altered mental state caused by her post-natal condition and her family problems,' said magistrate Chong Kah Wei.

Her lawyer Subhas Anandan believes the sentence was a fair one, particularly in the light of the public outcry over the recent Ng Hua Chye case, the freelance tour-guide whose maid died at his hands.

Ng, also represented by Mr Anandan, was sentenced to 18 years and six months in jail for what has been described as the worst case of maid abuse here. The 19-year-old Indonesian maid died ultimately from a ruptured stomach, but had 200 other injuries, inflicted over nine months.

'Circumstances are different now because of that case,' Mr Anandan said.

'I think you can expect higher sentences from the courts than before. If not for the post-natal depression, I think my client would have received a higher sentence.'

But other lawyers are not so happy with the sentences handed out to their clients.

'I don't think they are giving due weight to the psychiatrist's report at all,' said Mr Chia Ti Lik, whose client Tan Kim Boey, 35, was jailed for three months for poking and pinching her 22-year-old Indonesian maid.

He feels a one-month jail term would have been fair.

Post-natal depression affects 15 per cent of new mothers and can last more than two years if left untreated. Most sufferers do not seek help because of the social stigma attached to seeing a psychiatrist.

But psychiatrists say that it is rare for sufferers to lash out at someone. Tearful, passive and forgetful, most lack confidence and cannot motivate themselves to do even simple things such as getting dressed or going shopping. They can feel desperate, worthless, hopeless and often suicidal.

Says former sufferer Luise Russell, 33: 'I thought about getting hit by a car so everyone would be free of me.'

Any anger is usually directed at themselves because they feel useless as a mother.

Sometimes it can be directed at their child.

Said Dr Pauline Sim, a consultant psychiatrist in private practice: 'I had one mother who held her baby's head briefly under water.

'Then she realised what she was doing and stopped. Afterwards, she decided to seek help.'

Sometimes, a depressed mother will think her children are better off dead and will try to kill them.

Dr Sim recalls one Singapore mother who brought her three young children and her baby to a shopping centre, saying: 'Let's go and meet Jesus'.

On the ninth floor, the children became frightened and said: 'Mummy, can we meet Jesus another day?'

Thankfully, the mother took them down again, said Dr Sim. But two weeks later, she threw herself off a block of flats and died.

Despite the tendency for most to turn their anger inwards, certain perfectionist personalities might hit out at their maids, said Dr Sim.

'They think logically and expect the maid to use her common sense.'

When this does not happen, they might strike out at the source of their frustration.

The maid's mistake might be the straw that breaks the camel's back for someone who is tired, depressed and stressed for multiple reasons, said Dr Adrian Wang, a consultant psychiatrist at the Institute of Mental Health.

Joyce Tan was stressed at work because of the recession, said Mr Anandan. She was pregnant while in her 40s and was wondering whether her 12-year-old daughter from her first marriage would accept the new baby from her second one. Then, she suffered hormonal changes because of the pregnancy.

'A lot of things were happening at once,' he said.

Psychiatrists say post-natal depression can be sparked by a number of factors, such as exhaustion, marital difficulties and poor family support.

Dr Sim has seen post-natal depression cases triggered by the husband leaving his wife for another woman while she is still in the maternity ward.

But, said Dr Wang: 'Women with post-natal depression still know right from wrong.

'So, it is no excuse for hitting your maid.'