Woozy from pain medication after a Caesarean section, swinging from joy over her newborn boy to exhaustion from the strain of delivering him, Karen Piper mentioned to her doctor that she’d been hoping for a girl. She would come to regret those words.
[…]
When nurses finally told Piper she was free to leave, no discharge papers for her son were brought out. Instead, she faced a parade of inquisitive official visitors, including uniformed police, a social worker, a psychiatrist, and assorted doctors and nurses. Her baby had been placed on medical hold while government investigators considered whether Piper was fit to take Luke home to Prince George’s County, the authorities said.
[…]
A psychiatric intern asked Piper to spell “world” backward. A nurse-practitioner told Piper that it was awful that a new mother could be disappointed not to have had a girl. “She told me the burden was on me to prove that I should be allowed to take my baby home,” says Piper, a lawyer who works at the U.S. Department of the Interior.Like too many parents before her, Piper had fallen into the rigid, overlawyered maw of a child protection system that substitutes mandatory reporting for the judgment and human sensitivity medical professionals should exercise.
[…]
The hospital gave her pain meds that made her woozy, the hospital took her son to be circumcised, and then investigators wanted to know why Piper hadn’t spent more hours with her baby.
[…”]In our attempt to protect, we have also lost the ability of balance for fear of retribution.”
And on the other end of the motherhood spectrum…
Home birth.
Wonder how much the extra time they kept her child on “hold” cost her?
I don’t think I can spell “world” backward. And I’m sober.
“the hospital took her son to be circumcised”
Why hasn’t anyone at the hospital been charged with child abuse for genital mutilation?
Sad story. Disgusting would be more accurate. On the up side, I smell a lawsuit against whom ever blew the whistle on the new mother and whom ever took the complaint seriously…
I wish mother and baby lots of patience.
Peter_m
I agree with Chuck.
No kidding! What moron circumcises their kids anymore? Aside from the it being barbaric…it’s idiotic. Unless it’s for religious reasons, there isn’t any good reason, except the hospital/docs make more $$$
The woman had a c-section, too?
Too bad she didn’t opt for a home birth.
Strange….she could have gone to the same hospital a few months earlier and asked to have the baby’s life terminated and she would have been seen as making a tough but courageous decision.
In China, boys are preferred.
If you have a girl, just get an abortion and try again!
Nobody would even think twice…
Just one more reason I hated practicing medicine in the US. Somebody is always telling you what to do even when it isn’t necessarily in the best interests of the patient.
By the way, I’ve delivered my fair share of babies and I can swear to you, mothers can say the damnedest things after that big tumor is out of their bellies. Cesarean or vaginal delivery doesn’t matter though the additional drugs used for surgery certainly increase the befuddlement of the women.
So, what do you suppose CPS is worried about? That she will hurt the child or dress him up in skirts and training bras?
Shoot, who do you fear more? CPS or DHS? They both seem to be out to route out trouble. Even when its not there.
I’m sure they perform abortions at this hospital. Irony!
Wow, can we count the number of unnecessary medical procedures in this story?
1-Hospital birth
2-Cesarean
3-Pain meds
4-Circumcision
Amazing.
Oh, and all personnel getting between me and taking my kid home gets shot in the head.
#13:
I wouldn’t say a hospital birth is an unnecessary medical procedure. I have personally heard of very bad results from home and midwife births. Deaths in situations that would have been routine for an OB.
Pain meds are also not unnecessary. Have you ever seen a cesarean birth? It’s surgery while being conscious.
Isn’t circumcision mandatory when a baby born in a hospital??
Maybe the mom knew that studies show circumcision results in lower prostate cancer risk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_analysis_of_circumcision
Or maybe the mom was just concerned that women are turned off by the idea that they have to trust pigs-that-walk-like-men to actually wash the smegma out of an uncircumcised penis.
RBG
#15, yeah, sure. The reality of prostate cancer…live long enough as a male, and you’ll get it. I find the argument silly, and found the research to be flawed and annoying.
The statistics of who gets prostate cancer:
* 0.0 percent were diagnosed under age 20
* 0.0 percent between 20 and 34
* 0.5 percent between 35 and 44
* 8.3 percent between 45 and 54
* 26.9 percent between 55 and 64
If circumcision actually made a difference, don’t you think it would show up before age 55?
* 37.0 percent between 65 and 74
* 22.6 percent between 75 and 84
* 4.7 percent 85+ years of age.
These numbers show that men age 55-84 have been getting prostate cancer in later life. Given that circumcision was very common from pre-WW2 until the mid 70’s….(where most American males were routinely circumcised), but it became less routine from the late 70’s to current times. So, don’t you think these most recent numbers would be different? Perhaps MORE cancer earlier?
I’m not seeing it. I think the study is bogus. Oh shock, a flawed study.
RBG: circumcision is not about an easily-avoided personal hygiene problem, and neither is it about a tiny increase in the risk of prostate cancer, which was unknown back in the Bronze Age. I’m sure you know what the real agenda is there: It’s all about parental control of reproduction, a (failed) attempt to stop teenagers masturbating, and reduce the pleasure from sex in general.
I don’t get why people are trying to retrofit modern justifications on to a primitive mutilation ritual. I’ve seen that “Sex and the City” episode where one of the women gets freaked out by an uncircumcised man, but what do you think happens in the rest of the world, or even the USA outside New York and California? Now that we have soap and water, and condoms, this barbaric practice should just die out entirely.
Hey, if cutting off the tip of my pinky reduced my risk of peen cancer by 1%…
I wouldn’t cut it off.
Besides, misdiagnoses of prostate cancer are rampant. I know plenty of older men who are smart enough to refuse the ‘tests’ for it.
#18 Bryan T : “prostate cancer, which was unknown back in the Bronze Age”
Uhm. Nobody lived long enough in the bronze age to have prostate cancer. Besides, circumcision was practiced quite widely in the bronze age.
# 13 just wow: “Wow, can we count the number of unnecessary medical procedures in this story?
1-Hospital birth
2-Cesarean
3-Pain meds
4-Circumcision”
I’ll give you #4. There are pros and cons but I don’t think we can’t say it was unnecessary even if the mother felt it desirable.
BUT, this was a 50 year old, apparently first time mother. This would classify as a high risk birth. A hospital admission would seem prudent even without knowing anything esle about the mother’s health.
Was the Cesarean needed? Can’t say. But, again, a 50 y/o primip would be a good basis for a cut and snatch.
Drugs? Don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want my belly cut open without some drugs in me and some more later. Even if it’s a natural birth, a little pain killer goes a long way. And, until you can shit a bowling ball with a smile on your face, I think you ought let the ladies and their doctors decide that question.
Couples have stated their wishes on the sex their children for many years. Comments like “We have a girl now so it would be nice to have a boy.” and “Since we have two boys, a girl would be nice.” Should all these parents have their children taken away because they might be bad parents? Plus, these parents aren’t on drugs when they make these comments, most generally.
Getting your foreskin cut off as a baby if done right isn’t going to have anything to do with how much you enjoy sex but it can reduce the spread of STDs to and by you including cancers caused by viruses in your sex partners. That does include HIV.
#23:
While true, I’m sure a person can decide for themselves once they turn 18 if they want to be circumcised for this reason.
19. Brian t
I’m sure you know what the real agenda is there: It’s all about parental control of reproduction, a (failed) attempt to stop teenagers masturbating, and reduce the pleasure from sex in general.
Hello McFly: Those concepts went out with the politically correct notions that parents are responsible for programming girls to play with dolls.
The real agenda is lefty control. Period.
RBG
# 24
Do you work for CPS (you sound like one of them).
It doesn’t say she medically required a Caesarean section it says she had one. The Romans managed it to save the baby (although they only used it when the mother died not when she wanted to avoid cosmetic issues) and I am sure a doctor could manage the procedure outside of the CPS camp if necessary.
I am referring to removing control from this obviously tyrannical system. So if you must seek support from a hospital make sure you have a suitably forceful exit strategy.
#27, LDA,
It doesn’t say she medically required a Caesarean [sic] section it says she had one.
And you are familiar enough with this case to decide if one was required or not? That should be a decision between her and her physician, not some idiot without a clue that knows nothing about the case.
In case you want to pick apart the story, it also didn’t state if the doctors and nurses were licensed to practice medicine or the Social Worker was authorized to work in that country. Nor did it mention if the Hospital was accredited or if it is, what their status was.
I know I’m late to this party, but why isn’t anyone wondering if the real reason they took these steps was concern that the mother might be suffering from post-partum depression?
I’m not a doctor or a psychologist, and I don’t pretend to know much about the condition, but expressing regret over the sex of your newborn could easily be a symptom… and PPD could lead the mother to harm the baby or herself…
Not saying I know what happened or if it was a response proportional to the situation, but I’m surprised nobody mentions it.
#25 BRM
My brother-in-law had that done as an adult and wished he had it done when he was born. That is the main argument for doing it at birth. It’ll hurt too damn much when you can remember.