La violence médicale envers les jeunes enfants

Abstract

Medical Violence Toward Young Children. Two types of medical “abuse” are to be considered: (1) Mandatory violence in the form of preventive medical activities, i.e., immunizations, and curative medical activities, i.e., intensive care medicine. Means of decreasing the psychological trauma associated with these inevitable activities are considered. (2) Avoidable medical violence, of which three different forms can be identified: • In the institutions: separation of mother and child is still a common occurrence in maternity hospitals and in pediatric hospital services. • In medical practice: too often symptoms common in infants and children are dealt with by prescribing unnecessary drugs (cough, cold, crying during the night). • In placement of children under the pretence of medical cures for such foggy diagnoses as “rickets” or “recurring rhinopharyngitis,” which are cover-ups of the inability or refusal on part of the physician to apprehend a child's real problems. Such placements are apt to irreversibly destroy the psychological bonds of the child with his family. The physicians and health care personnel in general should be better prepared to cope with their own subconscious mechanisms, which often result in questionable automatic reflexes and decisions. This would result in a decrease in physical or symbolic abuses toward children.