The woman is schizophrenic. She's been on heavy meds for years. She'd been acting stranger than usual lately, her family said. Not too long ago she said, "I'm going to feed my children to the sharks". Of course, no one took her seriously. How could you possibly take something like that seriously, especially from a woman who doted on her children?
She knows what she's done. She may have even been aware of it while she did it. And while it's easy for us to say what she should have done instead, as one with close personal experience of mental illness, I'm horrified by the act, but I won't condemn her. She'll take care of that on her own, when she's lucid again.