In an 8-year review (1991-1998) of all consecutive coroners’ files in Quebec, the authors identified 34 cases of victims who were killed by their mothers. There were 27 mothers in the sample, & 15 of them died by suicide after the filicide. A psychiatric motive was determined for more than 85% of the mothers, & most mothers had received previous treatment for a depressive or psychotic disorder. Based on the characteristics of this sample, the authors developed a filicide classification system that needs to be standardized in order to become a useful tool for clinicians (34 refs.)