-Cp
03-20-2009, 02:44 PM
Working in a hospital brings exposure to the human condition in the way that no other job can. Of course you see birth and death, but you also see the results of human foibles like rage, anger and despair. All too often, mental illness plays a (usually harmful) role. Eventually, patient behavior, no matter how bizarre, loses the power to shock. That does not apply to the behavior of the staff. It’s still shocking when they begin to behave like they are crazy.
The story of The Baby in the Wonderbread Bag begins like so many stories of teen pregnancy, with a young girl who has successfully concealed her pregnancy from family and friends. In this case, the 16 year old girl also had a history of mental illness. She appeared in the emergency room complaining of intermittent abdominal pain. Because she looked well, she was advised to wait while patients who were seriously ill were seen before her.
No one paid her much attention until she went to the Ladies Room and blood was seen to flow from beneath the door. When Security broke down the door, the doctors found that the girl had given birth to a premature baby. She had stuffed the baby in a Wonderbread bag, and, at the moment Security had broken in, she was attempting to flush the baby down the toilet.
They rescued the baby from the toilet bowl and pulled him out of the plastic bag. The neonatologist rushed down from the neonatal intensive care unit and resuscitated the baby. He appeared to be about 7 weeks premature, and smaller than expected for this stage of pregnancy. Nonetheless he was healthy and vigorous, despite his brief time in the toilet, and was swept off to the NICU for further care.
That’s when the story gets weird.
Several days later, in my capacity as a chief resident in obstetrics, I was called to the weekly Social Service meeting to provide my input in difficult cases. When I arrived, I found that the Social Service staff calmly discussing whether the Wonderbread Baby should go home with his mother, as if it were perfectly reasonable that she had tried to flush her baby down the toilet. That shocked me.
...
http://open.salon.com/blog/amytuteurmd/2009/03/20/she_tried_to_flush_baby_down_the_toilet_the_it_get s_weird
The story of The Baby in the Wonderbread Bag begins like so many stories of teen pregnancy, with a young girl who has successfully concealed her pregnancy from family and friends. In this case, the 16 year old girl also had a history of mental illness. She appeared in the emergency room complaining of intermittent abdominal pain. Because she looked well, she was advised to wait while patients who were seriously ill were seen before her.
No one paid her much attention until she went to the Ladies Room and blood was seen to flow from beneath the door. When Security broke down the door, the doctors found that the girl had given birth to a premature baby. She had stuffed the baby in a Wonderbread bag, and, at the moment Security had broken in, she was attempting to flush the baby down the toilet.
They rescued the baby from the toilet bowl and pulled him out of the plastic bag. The neonatologist rushed down from the neonatal intensive care unit and resuscitated the baby. He appeared to be about 7 weeks premature, and smaller than expected for this stage of pregnancy. Nonetheless he was healthy and vigorous, despite his brief time in the toilet, and was swept off to the NICU for further care.
That’s when the story gets weird.
Several days later, in my capacity as a chief resident in obstetrics, I was called to the weekly Social Service meeting to provide my input in difficult cases. When I arrived, I found that the Social Service staff calmly discussing whether the Wonderbread Baby should go home with his mother, as if it were perfectly reasonable that she had tried to flush her baby down the toilet. That shocked me.
...
http://open.salon.com/blog/amytuteurmd/2009/03/20/she_tried_to_flush_baby_down_the_toilet_the_it_get s_weird