Interesting shift in the "Children's" ER the other day. Patient 1: Fifteen year old female presented with a sore throat. She also wanted a pregnancy test b/c she was late on her period. When I walked in the room....I saw a young female with tattoos on her neck and arms that said "bad ass." + nose and lip ring. Overall she was a sweet girl. She was concerned about being pregnant (which she wasn't...thank goodness). She did, though, have gonorrhea in her throat. The kicker...her t shirt said in big letters "Daddy's Little Girl." Having daughters myself, this saddened me. Let's just say we had a little heart to heart.
Patient 2: Fourteen year old female presented with abdominal pain. She was with her FOUR MONTH OLD child. She had been pregnant 2 times before, one resulting in an ectopic pregnancy. Again... this girl was fourteen years old!! She admitted to doing cocaine, marijuana, and "occasional" alcohol. Her last period was 4 months ago. Long story short...pregnancy test was positive, and she was transferred to the adult ER for another ectopic pregnancy workup. We consulted social work b/c she just didn't seem fit to be caring for her four month old.
-ER Doc
15 comments:
This is just so sad and frustrating. I hope your heart to heart helped. As far as the 14 year old with the 4 month old child; she needs some serious help to get her act together. No-one that young should be having babies.
It would be kind of late for an ectopic, no?
Where were these kids parents? How very sad.
yes it would be late. didnt have a quant hcg to know how far along she was. but even tho not likely ectopic...female with abdom pain, just dx with pregnancy = ectopic until proven otherwise
never saw any parents.
-ER Doc
This just breaks my heart and turns my stomach, and is a major reason why I left OB decades ago. I just couldn't take the frustration of watching a cycle of neglect and poverty repeat itself. Saw plenty of 32 year old grandmothers and knew I had to get out. Does anyone else think that this is a combination of extremely poor parenting in a broken home combined with the sexualization of young girls? I see the demeanor and dress of nine year olds in my DH's classroom and it is clear they will be pregnant in a few years..and no one seems to care enough to get thru to these girls that they don't HAVE to trade their bodies for adult attention.
Pattie, RN
ps..the capture was "stigma"..lack of which says it all!
I ..just don't even know ... I mean not to throw stones bc I was sexually active in high school, but I was smart enough and respected myself enough not to get pregnant. I honestly wish there was a way to require some kind of test in order to be allowed to concieve .... it's just so sad and frustrating ..
How sad.
Ditto anon on the timing of the ectopic though. :?
I am not in the medical field, yet find myself weirdly fascinated by some of these blogs.....
This post may answer why. I am a foster parent, and see similar WTF?! situations on a regular basis.
What I want to know is why we allow our laws to give parents so many chances to perpetuate this cycle. So you probably had a lousy childhood as well - does that mean you get a free pass to screw up the next generation??
Too bad kids don't vote - maybe then they would have more rights than our pets.
Her last period was four months ago...baby is four months old. That wasn't her period. It was lochia. Ectopic is possible depending on when she resumed sexual activity.
Wow - your hospital seems like an ideal place to train in EM. Once you have seen all this horrific shit, you will be able to handle anything you see at a posh suburban ER with your eyes closed.
I did social services for a pregnant 14 y.o. who had had one baby, one abortion and wanted to go through with present pregnancy as consolation for her boyfriend whose baby by another girl had just died...
very sad hope they're okay.
Can someone explain to me why biological parenthood so trumps all that we leave infants in the custody children who are are so young that we don't even allow them to drive, quit school, work full time, live alone, vote, marry, or sign contracts? 14-year-olds aren't even legally able to make medical decisions for themselves outside the area of sexuality and reproduction, yet we allow them to make these decisions for their children. How does make any sense to anyone?
Actually, Anon, depending on state laws, a teen who is pregnant may be considered an emancipated youth, giving her the right to deal with all legal documents such as medical consent forms, etc, for herselves and their child(ren).
It made no sense to me that my high school classmates who were getting pregnant at 15 and 16 years old were able to sign consent forms for surgery and so on when, at 17, a first year nursing student living away from home, my parents had to be called for consent when I went to the ER with an asthma attack.
During residency I delivered a LOT of babies, since we residents saw the Medicaid patients. I would ask the teenage mother how she planned to pay for the child, buy food, clothes etc ( as I was myself learning how expensive my first child was) and almost everyone of them said " The government gives me money ". There's your answer right there. Stop paying for pregnancies and they will cut way back on getting pregnant. Right now, we subsidize teenage pregnancy and pay them to have kids !
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