Yesterday, a 17-year-old mother of a 3-month-old boy called the clinic to say that her son was not eating well and vomiting. This happened two days after "some window blinds fell on his head" and she wanted to know if she should bring him in to see Dr. RR. The LVN told the mother to take the baby to the ER. After the conversation ended, the nurses and MAs began talking amongst themselves. They suspected that this mother (and maybe her child) were being abused by her boyfriend; in the past, CPS even went to their home while the boyfriend was at work toke mother and child away for their protection, but the mother had refused to leave. At any rate, the story about "falling window blinds" was definitely suspicious, but there was nothing anyone could do but hope for the best.
This morning word spread throughout the clinic that the little boy, Isaiah, was dead. Instead of going to the ER after hanging up with the LVN yesterday, his mother put him to bed and came back hours later to find him unresponsive in his crib. They took him to Dallas Medical Center (why they drove all the way out there is beyond us) where he was pronounced dead on arrival due to cardiopulmonary arrest. CPS and police got involved when old bruises were found on the child's body; so he did get abused. *sigh* I hope the boyfriend got arrested. Regarding the mother, as much as I feel for her loss (no parent should know what it's like to lose a child, never mind a teenager), I can't help but feel angry at her for not protecting her child better. Maybe she didn't know how to protect him and was not a good parent because she was still young as well, but still...why didn't she just take him to the ER when the LVN told her to do so? The LVN was sad and angry for a good part of the morning. "I told her to go to the ER," she said. "I wish I could have done more." *sigh* The worst part is knowing that this could have been prevented, and now there's a seventeen-year-old mourning her child because of her actions. This baby's death will probably haunt her for the rest of her life.
That little boy was born in early December; for all I know, one of my classmates delivered him at the hospital. Back when I was doing ob-gyn, I never thought about what would happen to all those babies born in the L&D. I assumed they would all go back to loving families and parents who cared for them, that they would grow up and lead healthy lives (Dr. K even joked that some of the girls might reappear in the L&D 15-20 years from now, when it's their turn to give birth) The truth is that we really don't know what happens to these babies after they leave the hopsital. We hope that they are loved, since no one wants to think about babies being born to get abused and mistreated by the people who are supposed to care for them. In this case, this boy's parents were only 17 and 18; clearly they weren't mature enough to raise a child properly. Then who can say that maybe death was probably the best thing to happen to him? I won't go so far as to say that any child is better off dead, but at the very least, he's not hurting anymore.
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