Stephans' ruling will lead to over-protective parents: Checkup caller
After a mother and father were found guilty of not providing their ailing toddler with medical care, parents across Canada are concerned about what effect that will have. Jennie-Mae Babcock called Checkup to say that she is worried it will make new parents overly concerned about the health of their children.
Listen to her share her experiences and concerns with Checkup guest host Duncan McCue:
Edited transcript:
Part of my concern is that there's lots of evidence to say that there was no deliberate intention of these parents to do anything that would be criminal in nature and certainly not to forego the best interest of their child. My initial concern was that there's going to be a lot of young parents out there that will be rushing to the emergency room for every fever. In the back of their mind, there's going to be this liability issue where they could be potentially facing prison.
When my daughter was born in the birth canal, she picked up bacterial meningitis. We were okayed by a pediatrician to leave the hospital. They said that I had a beautiful healthy baby girl. After having her home for 24 hours, I immediately got a feeling that something wasn't right. I called CMS and they showed up. They said, "Your daughter looks absolutely fine," but they wanted to check her blood sugar, which was low. We ended up back in the hospital, where they gave her an injection. Again her blood sugar was low and the doctor there was able to determine that my daughter was fighting an infection and saved her life. But the broad spectrum antibiotics that they gave her caused severe intestinal issues.
A few years following that she caught the rotavirus. After she had meningitis, I was ridiculously over protective and running her to the doctor. Members of my family were telling me, "You can't do that. You can't go to the doctor for every little thing because people are going to think that you're crazy." When she has a rotavirus they advised me not to take her but I deliberately took her. I'm thankful that I did because you know she ended up on an I.V. drip for 24 hours and she barely moved. If I hadn't done that she probably wouldn't have survived.
The doctor that I had seen was concerned about whether or not I was bringing my daughter too frequently. It was obvious that I was. But part of that was just the fact that I was a new mom.
I think [the Stephans ruling] has an adverse effect for all of Canada. I think that these parents were not grossly neglectful of their child, as a previous caller suggested. We all make sacrifices and investments when it comes to raising children. I think that this was a poor parenting choice and there were huge consequences for them. But the idea that they were being criminally prosecuted for that to me is a gross injustice in our Canadian political system.
Jennie-Mac Babcock's comments have been edited and condensed. This online segment was prepared by Ayesha Barmania.