Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Nov
25
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…You Are Too Young To Know How To Care For A Baby.”
“I’m not going to help you get pregnant because you are too young to know how to care for a baby.” – OB to young adult woman with infertility who was seeking help to conceive.
There are 36 comments to this post.
My husband and I have been experiencing infertility for almost 3 years now; after 1 year of trying (you know, when they tell you to actually seek out some sort of medical advice), I asked the military OB/GYN about what kinds of preliminary steps we could take to start weeding issues out. She replied by saying I was “way too young”, “had plenty of time”, and (my favorite) “It’s impossible to have unprotected sex and not eventually get pregnant.”
Aside from the obvious stupidity of the last comment, I was completely taken aback, considering that at the time of that appointment, I was 24 years old!
TWENTY-FOUR!
Time-wise, you can’t win with OBs. Either you’re in your early- to mid-twenties and “too young” and “have plenty of time”, or you’re 30 and WAAAAY too ancient to bear children in that dusty uterus. *eyeroll*
OP, from someone who’s been there – how infuriating!! Family planning is a personal matter; others’ opinions are null and void! It’s terrible when OBs push their personal beliefs on those they’re supposed to help, and in such a crippling way, too. :-/
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Laurel Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 2:44 pm (Quote)
I got that kind of stuff too. It wasn’t until we were TTC for over a year and someone said “well, that doesn’t seem right, you’re so young.” Why is it that young people can’t have fertility issues?
One doctor even told me I couldn’t have PCOS because I had a kid and I’m not overweight. But guess what, I DO have PCOS and if the idiot did tests instead of literally looking at me to make his decision then we could have avoided months of pain failing to conceive and possibly a miscarriage.
The OB who finally listened to me decided that I was young and she said I’d be pregnant quickly and she even went as far as to tell DS that he’d have a sister soon (??). Until she did the labwork and realized I have PCOS and all of a sudden her prognosis wasn’t so good.
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Laurel Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 2:48 pm (Quote)
Oh and in my medical records (in the military system) it says that I have a “fear of an undiagnosed medical condition” (which would be PCOS) put into my record by that first doctor. Such an ass, he didn’t believe I could have it so he made me look crazy.
I asked an endocrinologist I saw within the system to remove it and she said she would and never did. That remark makes me look insane, a hypochondriac and I have been treated poorly since then for complaining about diagnosed medical conditions. One doctor actually told her XO that she didn’t believe I was in pain once and she thought I was lying even though I had a history of spine surgeries and it was in my medical record. She just assumed that because I’m a “liar with psychosomatic issues” I had to be making up pain too.
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Step one: find a new doctor.
Step two: report this doctor to the state licensing board for refusing to investigate and treat a medical condition.
Step three: investigate whether the doctor’s statement that the woman was “too young” to care for a baby is a civil rights violation (discrimination) and then follow up on that in any way necessary.
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Laura--The Sushi Snob had this to say,
Nov 25, 2011 @ 3:04 pm (Quote)
Um, wow…what planet is this OB from?
My mom had fertility issues when she was trying to get pregnant with baby #1. Luckily, she found a fertility specialist who was VERY kind to her and listened to her concerns. And folks, she was in her mid-twenties when she sought out treatment. Her doctor didn’t tell her she was too young, thank goodness.
Ooh, this angers me.
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I am an infertility pro these days, unfortunately. After having spent the better part of 4 years in my RE’s office, I can confidently say there are women of ALL ages there, at least from what I’ve seen during my many stays in the waiting room. Infertility certainly does not discriminate by age.
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I stopped getting my period due to PCOS at 16. I got married at 19 and started taking fertility meds at 20. I was 21 when my son was born and I felt completely prepared to care for him, due to babysitting dozens of children and living with several during my life. I felt a lot more overwhelmed when I had my daughter when I was 28 – the pregnancy was a lot more difficult and I didn’t bounce back as quickly. I think being 7 years older had a lot to do with it!
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xanthina Reply:
November 26th, 2011 at 9:28 am (Quote)
I was 22 when my daughter was born. I just turned 28, and I’m ‘full term’ with Baby #2. I am wavering between “I can rock this!” and “Ummm…. I forget everything. Almost. Maybe.”
I think in some ways age, and having another child, both affect this mentality. When it was just focusing on baby, everything is tunnel vision. Hard to tunnel vision when there are others to care for, lol.
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Jespren had this to say,
Nov 25, 2011 @ 8:11 pm (Quote)
I started doing overnight babysitting jobs with infants when I was 13. With the rare exception, if you are old enough to worry about *why* you’re *not* getting pregnant, you’re old enough to take care of a baby. Yet another example of an OB apparently believing human culture/civilization sprang fully formed into existance in the West with modern medicine. Morons.
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Julie had this to say,
Nov 26, 2011 @ 7:42 am (Quote)
A radio station in town just had a contest called “win a baby” where 1 couple could win 3 rounds of IVF… all 5 finalest couple were under 30 from the looks of it… It was great that it shed light on the fact that infertility doesn’t discriminate. Anyways, all 5 couples won 
I can kind of understand a doc not wanting to help a young girl get pregnant though… Being able to care for a baby does not equal being ready to be a mother. Personally I think you should be a legal adult to get fertility treatments.
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Susan Peterson Reply:
November 26th, 2011 at 8:38 am (Quote)
The post says that the OB said this to “a young adult woman.” I think the legal definition of adult is now 18, although there is a holdout for 21 with respect to the drinking age. (When I was young the drinking age was 18 and the voting age was 21. Now it has switched. Obviously the line is not clear.) Many women in the past have been women in their teens,even before legal adulthood, and been good mothers. One of my daughters had a baby at sixteen and was a good mother to her. The baby is now 20 and a college sophomore, a beautiful young woman. Oh, and my daughter has a master’s degree, a responsible job, and owns a nice house. I think this doctor’s comment is part of the more and more extended idea of adolescence we have in this country-(Europe and Australia also?). It really depends on the woman, not on her age, whether she will be a good mother. I think that if the woman were known to be frequently drunk or to do drugs, the doctor would be within his rights not to help her get pregnant until she changed. I suppose he is within his rights to practice according to his own opinion even if he is wrong, so long as there are other doctors the woman can see. But his opinion is wrong if he thinks any legal adult is “too young” to be a mother, just based on her chronological age.
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My children are over 4 years apart, not by my choice. When I saw a NP to try to determine why I hadn’t gotten a period in over a year, she said it was no big deal, I was “only” 25 (or 26, don’t remember) and that my daughter was “only” two, when I expressed concern that I didn’t want my kids to be 4 or 5 years apart.
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This one’s mine!
I am 20 years old, and in a stable relationship of 6 years.
This was said to me 6 months after a miscarriage (of a planned pregnancy) when I still hadn’t had a period, and the OB just wanted to put me back on birth control. She wouldn’t even run tests, even though I’ve never had regular periods, so I was sure it wasn’t related to the miscarriage.
After this comment, she proceeded with asking me if I even knew how to pick out a safe carseat or crib. (!)and, “You know babies wake up in the middle of the night, right.” Ummm, yeah doc. Not a moron.
Not to mention I’ve been a babysitter for 7 years and a nanny for 3. I have parents in their 30s or older asking *me* about what carseat they should get, how they should discipline their kids, whether or not to vaccinate, etc. But of course I couldn’t possibly make those decisions for my own child…
I left her office and immediately called another. I have now been diagnosed with PCOS and am being treated for it.
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Jane Reply:
November 26th, 2011 at 11:50 am (Quote)
Please report this doctor to your state licensing board. She was discriminating against you and denying you proper health care on the basis of age alone. Make sure to mention another provider did, in fact, diagnose you with a medical problem for which you are now being treated.
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Knitted in the Womb Reply:
November 26th, 2011 at 7:42 pm (Quote)
What Jane said!
Women need to speak up more against this abuse. Figuring out why you haven’t gotten a period again 6 months after a miscarriage (and why you have irregular periods in general) is entirely separate from “helping you get pregnant” (which, ahem…you are perfectly within your rights to do…I hope you get pregnant soon!). Failing to treat those issues is irresponsible.
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lys810 Reply:
November 26th, 2011 at 10:50 pm (Quote)
Her feeling was that putting me back on birth control pills would be treating the problem of the missing cycles, and when I refused because of TTC (and obviously the pill is counterproductive to that) she said anything else would be helping me to get pregnant- and I’m just not old enough. But as someone said above, no matter when you get pregnant, you’re the wrong age… under 29? Too young. 30 or over? Too old…
And yes, I did report her as soon as I had the diagnose of PCOS handed to me at the new doctor. I filed a complaint with the licensing board, as well as the practice she works at and the hospital she has privileges at. (Her practice was located within the hospital itself, one of the initial reasons I chose that practice. Everything is on-site. My new doctor is just across the street.)
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Jane Reply:
November 27th, 2011 at 3:03 pm (Quote)
Many doctors have no idea how to help a woman achieve normal cycles and only know how to prescribe the Pill in order to simulate normal cycles.
They’re not normal cycles; it just masks the problem.
Once you turned down the only thing this doctor knew how to do, she had to lash out at you in order to hide her ignorance. Most likely she really has no idea how to handle PCOS and wouldn’t even begin to know how to interpret the results of a hormone panel, so she made her lack of knowledge into your lack of knowledge in an attempt to shame you into not revealing that she wasn’t a good doctor. :-b
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lys810 Reply:
November 27th, 2011 at 7:43 pm (Quote)
Unfortunately, that was not likely her thought process. The practice she was at is quite well known in my area for helping women with infertility conceive- without sending them to reproductive endocronologists or other fertility specialists. I was actually referred there by an older friend who had this *same* doctor. My friend has PCOS, and was diagnosed by this doctor in 2 visits, and conceived her little boy 2 cycles later.
Just a judgemental sOB is all, I guess…
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Jane Reply:
November 28th, 2011 at 3:21 am (Quote)
Yikes!!! It was almost excusable if it was ignorance, but she really did slide it up into the realm of civil rights violation. 
Was there any follow-up after you reported her?
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lys810 Reply:
November 28th, 2011 at 7:43 am (Quote)
No follow up yet, but I was told it may take a while. I’m just glad that I found someone who *would* help me that still works at my hospital of choice. The new doctor also told me that if I had a rough idea of what I wanted on my birth plan, to bring it into the first appointment with me so we could discuss. (So clearly, she is supportive of them, regardless of the patient’s age…)
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OP, I’m so sorry you had to go through this. I had my first little one at 16 (not planned obviously) and I can tell you first hand that age is not a factor in ones ability to care for a child! Maturity is. At 25, I now have 3 sons- 9 (almost 10), 5, and 1 (almost 2). People are still telling me that I’m too young to have children which is ridiculous. Their best interests are always my number one priority and I think that is what determines ones ability to parent…not age.
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Jessica Reply:
November 26th, 2011 at 11:23 pm (Quote)
Grrr, I think it’s so stupid that people will say you’re too young to have kids… especially when you already have them! What are you supposed to do, give them away?
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Lizzie Reply:
December 19th, 2011 at 12:30 pm (Quote)
When I was working a part-time job at a department store, I had a snotty little brat (one of my co-workers)ask me if I had any children. I was 25 at that time. I replied that I had three sons and was thinking of trying for number four about three months after that, after my youngest turned one. She asked how old I was and then informed me I was too young to have so many children and that three was quite enough and I should stop. Yeah, like I was going to let some 19 year old stuck up brat tell me how many children was enough.
Then, after that job ended, since it was temporary, I went back to staying home and had another woman tell me I was “too smart to stay home” with the boys.
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At 22 I was told something similar when I went for a routine pap smear and mentioned to the nurse that I was preparing to get pregnant. I asked her if there was anything I should be doing in addition to taking folic acid/stopping drinking and she just shot me down by saying I was too young, and refusing to give me advice. I was so sad as she was the first person (other than my husband of, at that point, 2 years) who I had told that I was going to start a family soon and she did all she could to crush my joy.
Happily when I did fall pregnant shortly after I went to a new GP service and was congratulated, supported and never judged for my age
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jaed Reply:
November 26th, 2011 at 9:54 pm (Quote)
That is professional negligence on the nurse’s part. Her unwanted and silly opinions notwithstanding, she does have an ethical obligation to advise you or inform you where to get advice when asked a medical question. She should be reported to her professional association and her employers.
(And she should also be slapped with a wet fish for trying to spoil such a happy time. A large trout, I think.)
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Add Your Comment.
I’m going to assume this is poor wording rather than actual belief system, because when it comes to “caring for a baby,” the skill set doesn’t take a lot of maturity. Does the doc actually think this woman is too young to know how to dress, diaper, bathe, feed, burp and rock the baby to sleep? Because I could do all those things at 16.
Without having seen the pink link, I don’t know how young this doc apparently thinks is too young to be a mother, but the intention to conceive goes a long way.
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