11yr old accused of being pregnant

[Miggy]

My husband has just sent me this article. It is old but I couldn't find a discussion on it.

http://www.wkyc.com/news/watercooler/ar ... f=obinsite

Hubby wants to know what sort of mother does pregnancy tests for three months rather than believing her daughter, who says she isn't pregnant, and rushing her straight to a doctor.

The poor little girl; three months of teasing at school, her mother not believing her, repeated pregnancy tests and, on top of it all, her stomach continuing to swell. The girl must have known something was wrong and no one is listening to her.

[Wandering]

Um yeah that is really messed up. How humiliating it must have been for that poor girl to have been teased at school and then forced to take pregnancy tests at 11 years old by your mother. The mom should have taken her daughter to a doctor first thing and had her questions answered there instead of testing her every two weeks.

[Just_Jane]

It does look like the mother took her to one doctor and they didn't find anything at that time. I wonder what they were looking for. Just pregnancy or something else. Personally, If it had been my daughter I wouldn't have done all the pregnancy tests and instead been more focused on what was causing the extended stomach. If it's not pregnancy and that's been ruled out then it's got to be something else. I watch a lot of those medical shows on discovery health.

[kiwimusume]

Janet Roberts said she has lived by a rule learned from her mother.

"Our mom always told us never judge a book by its cover," said Roberts, "and see what she meant with this situation that happened with my daughter."

Roberts had this word of caution to anyone who thinks about bullying or harassing someone else.

"Before you judge a child by how he or she looks, get to know that child," she said.

What, like you did? You did just as much judging and your attitude was just as damaging if not more so, so less of the damn preaching.

[Miggy]

Those were the comments that made me cry. I might ask my daughter about the possibility of pregnancy because I would be concerned she had been raped and didn't have the courage to talk about it. No matter what she answered we would be heading to the doctor immediately because (a) she is pregnant and that is really dangerous for an 11 year old or (b) she has something else wrong with her. If the first doctor doesn't give us a proper answer, we would see another one the next day and the next and the next and the next until we get an answer.

[Kitty]

Preach it, kiwimusume! That sorry excuse for a mother is horrid.

I may be 21 and childless, but I like to think that I'd take my hypothetical daughter seriously and take her to the doctor rather than assume she was a lying whore. Apparently that's what the firs doctor also did. Fucking cockmongrel. This poor child probably hadn't even had her period yet! And if she had... Seriously, your daughter is being bullied at school over something she has zero control over and is probably quite ill, and you make her take pregnancy tests every 2 weeks for 3 months?! The fact that she's eleven years old should have been your first hint that something was horribly wrong!

Oh, and while I'm at it, let me rant about how we (general we) really need to stop assuming that anything wrong with a woman or girl's abdomen automatically means she's pregnant. Oh my fuck that's irritating. Slightly queasy smelling some foreign dish? Pregnant! Vomiting thanks to some short-lived stomach virus? Pregnant! Having the headache of the motherfucking century made worse by walking into a wal-mart? Pregnant! All the weight you gained around Thanksgiving and Christmas to straight to our belly? Gotta be pregggggg. Having worse than normal cramps during your period? MUST BE PREGNANT YOU LIAR LIAR SLUTTY PANTIES ON FIRE.

Seriously, its like shitty Victorian-era doctors attributing anything wrong with a woman on hysteria. Maybe it's the modern day version. But it's really sexist and really, really dickish.

[micatite]

I have this horrible feeling that the tumor might be because of ovarian cancer. My mother had it and they removed a 13" mass from her (she DID look pregnant, despite us knowing that couldn't possibly be so), then she had to undergo months of chemo. And I have heard of rare cases where it occurred in pre-pubescent girls. That poor child.

[Kitty]

I have this horrible feeling that the tumor might be because of ovarian cancer. My mother had it and they removed a 13" mass from her (she DID look pregnant, despite us knowing that couldn't possibly be so), then she had to undergo months of chemo. And I have heard of rare cases where it occurred in pre-pubescent girls. That poor child.

And I thought I was nuts for thinking it could be ovarian cancer. I mean, I know it's such a rare possibility in a child, but damn. The article says nothing about cancer, but seriously, any body part growing so mysteriously large on anyone should be checked out pronto.

Again, this is so much like the Modern-day version of a hysteria diagnosis it's not even funny. Even if it wasn't ovarian cancer, just imagine what an untreated tumor could do to someone's organs had that idiot egg donor waited another few months. That poor, poor girl.

[emmiedahl]

I have a daughter just a bit younger than this one and pregnancy would not even be a thought in my head. In a prepubescent girl? Sure, she would not be the first 11 year old to get pregnant but it is certainly rare. Not as rare as abdominal tumors. And whether pregnant or not, medical care post haste! And repeated doctor's visits until the cause is identified and removed. Slut shaming is never the answer, but it is especially not the answer in elementary school.

[snarkbillie]

I would take my daughter immediately to the doctor. If that doctor was unable to find a problem I would take her to another. Something was obviously wrong, why go through all this drama rather than finding an answer and possible treatment?!

[KO84]

The flip side of all women's health issues being blamed on possible pregnancy is that when you really are pregnant no one will take your symptoms seriously. Oh, bleeding from your eyes? You're pregnant, it's totally normal. Your toe fell off? That happens when you're pregnant. Your body hair spontaneously combusted? That's a classic pregnancy complaint.

[snarkyjan]

Anf if this kid really has a malignancy, the stupid mother just wasted over 2 precious months that could have been better spent diagnosing her condition and treating it.

[jenny_islander]

Dear God, if I thought my eleven-year-old child was pregnant, I would take her to the police and ask for the cop who specialized in talking to child sexual assault victims! What kind of adult looks at a possibly pregnant eleven-year-old and thinks, "What a bad kid, I have to prove how bad she is," or apparently, "Well, doop de doo de schmoop, I guess she's pregnant, better prove it?" What kind of adult assumes that a possibly pregnant eleven-year-old who won't acknowledge the presumed pregnancy is stubborn instead of scared? Of, you know, the father? Or what might happen if the adult found out who the father was? Like, somebody the adult had trusted not to, oh, have sex with a child? Why all the stupid pregnancy tests and no calls to the police?!

Fixating on a child's possible pregnancy instead of looking for other causes of abdominal swelling (irritable bowel syndrome, liver disease, cancer--and that was on the first page of Google results) for two months is a massive case of parental fail. Also, at least one doctor appears to have fixated on "girl + puberty = slut" as well, letting this girl down in a serious way.

[2xx1xy1JD]

As a mother, I'd certainly have a different reaction - but I'm going to spread around some of the blame here. The school and the first doctor seemed to be fixated on pregnancy as the most likely explanation. I don't know what sort of medical resources would have been available to the family. Did the first doctor just test for pregnancy, or did they check for other problems as well? Would other medical visit have been covered soon after the first one?

[ILoveJellybeans]

Surely after the first pregnancy test, they should have ruled that out and gone to see a doctor. Theres more reasons for a belly to swell that doesnt involve a fetus growing in there, especially for an 11 year old.

[DarkAnts]

It sounds like she may have had a Dermoid cyst. Her mom said they had to drain it before it could be removed. This makes me think it was a cyst. They can develop on the ovaries of women.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermoid_cyst

[mirele]

I wonder how much of this had to do with insurance or lack thereof? It's cheaper to get pregnancy tests than to go to the doctor if you have no insurance. But I agree, the mother needs to look at herself HARD in the mirror.

[penguinagogo]

this is just crazy

you can never assume abdominal swelling is pregnancy

simple aid memoire think of

Fat (obesity - I always mentally add solid organ swelling to this one)

Faeces (constipation)

Fetus (pregnancy)

Flatus (gastrointestinal)

Fluid (ascites)

Sounds like everyone was more worried about the school teasing and rumors than the reality of the situation - that an 11 year old had experienced rapid abdominal swelling

eg - either she was pregnant at 11 in which case was at high risk of health issues anyway, plus given her age below the age of consent she would

have to automatically be considered a victim of rape, abuse or coercion

´or the swelling could be due to any number of problems - eg bowel pathology (obstruction due to tumor or bezoar, infection, intolerances), liver failure,

ovarian cyst or teratoma (most likely) or further out there -splenomegaly, lymphoma all of which need assessment and medical care

I agree, this mother should not be preaching at anybody!

Simple story - I had a flatmate once who rapidly gained abdominal weight over about a month or 2. A few of us noticed but she was quite a private person, had various health problems and IBS, and none of us discussed it or had thought to ask her any questions. I remember going to bed one night - she had been wearing a tight jumper, thinking she looked really lopsided abdominally -. In the morning she shouted for help from her room and we called an ambulance - she was in acute pain from a torsion of a cystic teratoma, which was apparently almost 3 stone in weight when removed. She was very unwell and had a huge laparotomy scar from its removal because of the size. I often wonder if one of us, her flatmates had approached her several weeks before and asked her if she was ok whether she might have sought medical help earlier and avoided emergency surgery, transfusion and been able to have a less invasive operation.

[JMarie]

I hope the girl wasn't in pain.

[dawbs]

I hope the girl wasn't in pain.

if it was a dermoid cyst/teratoma, I'll go out on a limb (should I do an AMA? ;) ) and say that, I had 2 (it's rare to have them bilaterally, but I got the genetic lottery) and they didn't hurt--sometimes a slightly crampy/pressury feeling that *may* have been related, but no major pain. 'course, hers was huge so the pressure was probably greater.

Some pain in the recovery but, for 'major abdominal surgery', not taht bad.

Not that this kid won't have a helluva recovery, no matter what because hers was huge and she's gonna have some emotional scars from this crap.

[Mela99]

So she calls it a "wicked rumor" but she believed it and probably broke her daughter's heart into a thousand pieces, but OTHER people are bullies?

::head desk::

[pixydust]

So she calls it a "wicked rumor" but she believed it and probably broke her daughter's heart into a thousand pieces, but OTHER people are bullies?

::head desk::

I wonder if this girl will ever get over her mother doubting her like that? Things like that can stay with you forever.

[bea]

I have my own horrifying experience with something like this. Only in my case, it was a bunch of male ER doctors who thought that nausea was a symptom of pregnancy and was never, ever present for anything else, like the stomach flu or norovirus.

When I was 15, I was in a summer theater program and living in a dorm and I caught a cold. I didn't realize that it turned into pneumonia, and then I caught a stomach virus. Hell, everyone on my floor caught that stomach virus. My problem was that I didn't get better. I was sick. SICK. The dorm supervisor took me to the ER, because I was dehydrating pretty rapidly.

They asked me in the ER if I was pregnant. I said I wasn't. They asked me if I was sure. I told them that unless I was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, pregnancy was out of the question, as I'd never had intercourse.

Not good enough, apparently. They did a urine dipstick pregnancy test. It was negative. They ran a blood test to see if I was pregnant. It was negative.

Then, for reasons I will never, ever understand, the doctor decided to give me a pelvic exam. I couldn't lie on my back without getting faint, so they gave me an oxygen mask. They didn't really explain what was happening. I was on a bed in an open cubicle in a busy emergency room, gasping for breath, dry heaving, and a (male) doctor and two (male) residents told me to take all my clothes off and get in a gown, then they made me lie down and stuck my feet in the stirrups. I needed an exam, they said. No one closed off the cubicle, so I was in stirrups getting my first pelvic exam in full view of all the ER staff and patients.

Apparently the urine test and the blood test hadn't convinced them. They used a full-sized speculum, despite the fact that I was a small-boned, thin adolescent who had never had intercourse. The doctor put the speculum in and I SCREAMED. "Oh," said the doctor with a barely-suppressed laugh, "I guess you really were telling the truth about boys, huh."

Pelvic exam showed nothing. I was diagnosed with pneumonia and gastroenteritits and wound up in the hospital for a week, because it's hard to take antibiotics wen you can't keep anything down.

I can still clearly remember the total contempt on the faces of the male doctors, because a 15 year old girl screamed in pain and terror when they used a full-sized speculum on her during a public, completely unneeded pelvic exam, an exam she'd never had before and didn't understand at all.

Human beings can be assholes.

[BoomerLynn]

I have my own horrifying experience with something like this. Only in my case, it was a bunch of male ER doctors who thought that nausea was a symptom of pregnancy and was never, ever present for anything else, like the stomach flu or norovirus.

When I was 15, I was in a summer theater program and living in a dorm and I caught a cold. I didn't realize that it turned into pneumonia, and then I caught a stomach virus. Hell, everyone on my floor caught that stomach virus. My problem was that I didn't get better. I was sick. SICK. The dorm supervisor took me to the ER, because I was dehydrating pretty rapidly.

They asked me in the ER if I was pregnant. I said I wasn't. They asked me if I was sure. I told them that unless I was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, pregnancy was out of the question, as I'd never had intercourse.

Not good enough, apparently. They did a urine dipstick pregnancy test. It was negative. They ran a blood test to see if I was pregnant. It was negative.

Then, for reasons I will never, ever understand, the doctor decided to give me a pelvic exam. I couldn't lie on my back without getting faint, so they gave me an oxygen mask. They didn't really explain what was happening. I was on a bed in an open cubicle in a busy emergency room, gasping for breath, dry heaving, and a (male) doctor and two (male) residents told me to take all my clothes off and get in a gown, then they made me lie down and stuck my feet in the stirrups. I needed an exam, they said. No one closed off the cubicle, so I was in stirrups getting my first pelvic exam in full view of all the ER staff and patients.

Apparently the urine test and the blood test hadn't convinced them. They used a full-sized speculum, despite the fact that I was a small-boned, thin adolescent who had never had intercourse. The doctor put the speculum in and I SCREAMED. "Oh," said the doctor with a barely-suppressed laugh, "I guess you really were telling the truth about boys, huh."

Pelvic exam showed nothing. I was diagnosed with pneumonia and gastroenteritits and wound up in the hospital for a week, because it's hard to take antibiotics wen you can't keep anything down.

I can still clearly remember the total contempt on the faces of the male doctors, because a 15 year old girl screamed in pain and terror when they used a full-sized speculum on her during a public, completely unneeded pelvic exam, an exam she'd never had before and didn't understand at all.

Human beings can be assholes.

I am so sorry you went through that. Those doctors should be barred from ever practicing medicine again.

[frumper-rump]

The very FIRST thing I would do if my child's stomach was swelling would be to consult the pediatrician- immediately. I feel so, so horribly upset for this little girl. I want to hug her and tell her that there are people in this world who dont jump to crazy conclusions and who do believe children when they speak up about their own body and feelings. To not be believed by your own mother is such an awful betrayal. This sure makes me thankful for my own mom, who listened and believed me when I hurt or felt like something was wrong with my body.