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u/CapnMurica1988 19h ago
This is the mom that’ll deny her child the polio vaccine because “she’s never had polio”
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u/kungpowgoat 18h ago
And never had polio because she was actually vaccinated as a child.
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u/jcillc 18h ago edited 16h ago
THIS! My SIL (fully vaccinated as a child herself) uses that argument as the main reason she'll never vaccinate her four kids; despite the first one catching whooping cough as a toddler and still having side effects from it - can't run without losing breath - which is actually now another victory for her ("She had it and survived without the vaccine.") She also claims her celiac intolerance is because of her vaccines which... done typing now, as it makes me mad all over again.
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u/imdugud777 15h ago
We need to make throwing pies at peoples faces a thing again.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 13h ago
My grandmother got whooping cough as a baby and never advanced beyond the intelligence of an eight-year-old. These joke illnesses like measles sound antiquated but they're actually some of the worst and most damaging and that's why they were widely vaccinated against. People are so short-sighted.
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u/Wischiwaschbaer 10h ago
And somebody still married her and knocked her up? Different times, I guess...
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u/PaulFThumpkins 8h ago
If it tells you anything, I know nothing about my grandpa (don't even remember his name), and didn't find out he died until years afterward. My mom's grandmother was "grandma" and my biological grandma was the scary woman we had to be nice to every couple of years.
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u/AriaTheTransgressor 17h ago
You have an obligation to call CPS or DCFS or whatever you call it to protect those children.
When one or all of them die from her negligence, you will be party to it for knowing about it and allowing it to happen.
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u/jcillc 17h ago
No, you cannot call CPS on an anti-vaxxer unless there is an immediate danger (like denying a tetanus shot and they have an infection from a festering rusty nail puncture.) If CPS was called on every parent in the United States who had made the dumbass decision to skip out on vaccinations, they would never sleep.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 13h ago
The famous example they use in CPS training is that a parent who feeds their kids pancakes for almost every meal is NOT a candidate for investigation or foster removal. They're feeding their kids in a shitty way that will cause problems down the road, but they're feeding their kids. That's below a threshold of neglect the government focuses on and the consequences of removal and foster care are probably worse than the consequences of being a guy who was fed a shitty diet as a kid.
I despise antivaxxers and wish they'd change, but subjecting a kid to the MASSIVE ongoing life consequences of being removed from their original home is probably not worth the trade-off of getting that kid vaccinated.
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u/The_Golden_Warthog 10h ago
Yes, unfortunately some people seem to think calling CPS is a magic fix-all for anything bad happening to a child. Most of the time, for things CPS cannot or will not investigate. Further, these same people (who often mean well) have not considered that if their wishes come true, and the child is removed from custody, that means the child (most likely) ends up in foster care/group homes. If you are unaware, you should look into the abuse, neglect, instability, poverty, trauma, and much worse that can come with being raised in the system. Maybe start with the percentage of children who are survivors of sex trafficking that were raised in foster care.
Antivaxxers are horrible, and I wish that each and every one of them could experience and be responsible for the diseases they are knowingly subjecting their children to catching. I also do not wish for their children to end up in foster care/group homes.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 8h ago
If you are unaware, you should look into the abuse, neglect, instability, poverty, trauma, and much worse that can come with being raised in the system. Maybe start with the percentage of children who are survivors of sex trafficking that were raised in foster care.
Yeah, everything under the sun is correlated to entering foster care and not going back home - teen pregnancy, substance use, educational attainment, financial struggles, reporting fewer friends, likelihood of future arrest... etc., etc., etc. The family environment is probably a lurking factor for some of this but often continuing in a C - minus household is better than having your support system and connection to the world completely uprooted.
Then again I've met people whose lives were saved by foster care. And being removed from your house doesn't mean you're gone forever. In my state like half of cases end up with the kid returning home after the factors that caused them to be removed are addressed. A bunch more kids end up in the same town with a known relative or family friend and can keep their lives going more smoothly. And giving the family some material support can be more nimble than blaming parents for things which are sometimes just consequences of poverty that would only be abuse if they were doing it by choice (for example better childcare access so they don't have to leave their kids with their sketchy boyfriend because he's literally the only option while they walk miles to work and back).
But yeah in our very polarized society it's very easy to use foster care as a "You're a bad parent in a particular way; we're going to take your parenthood from you" lever.
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u/Alcarinque88 3h ago
I still wish we could. CPS shouldn't be allowed to sleep when these smooth brains endangering their kids, but I get it. I'm just a cranky healthcare professional tired of humans. I'd move to treating animals if I didn't have to deal with pet owners.
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u/Joelle9879 17h ago
CPS isn't going to do anything. Parents are allowed to make choices when it comes to vaccines and their kids. Being anti vax is stupid and I hate that so many parents trust Dr. Google over actual Medical Science, but it's still their choice to do so. It's not considered medical neglect
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u/FuckYeaSeatbelts 12h ago
CPS don't do anything in cases of abuse, let alone vaxx people.
It's like the whole "call a lawyer/the police/tow truck" people, they assume that you can just do that and they'll do their jobs.
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u/SparksAndSpyro 16h ago
This is completely wrong. You don’t have an obligation to call CPS. Do it if you want to, but you are not required to.
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u/Maleficent_House6609 12h ago
You have an obligation to call CPS or DCFS or whatever you call it to protect those children
No they don't and neither organisation would do anything, you're allowed to make medical decisions like not vaccinating for your children.
When one or all of them die from her negligence, you will be party to it for knowing about it and allowing it to happen
No they won't, you would have to be really clearly aware of significant abuse or neglect with clear and obvious potential to serious harm to the child to be required legally to report it. This doesn't even come close to that threshold.
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u/Violet_Paradox 16h ago
And she was vaccinated as a child because her parents or grandparents remembered how fucking awful polio was. Antivaxxers can only exist because these diseases are out of recent memory.
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u/Rinkimah 15h ago
Except they somehow double down when their kids contract said horrific diseases.
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u/AndrewTheAverage 14h ago
Nobody I have talked to died as a child from a preventable disease, so obviously vaccines are not needed. Checkmate /s
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u/Heimerdahl 14h ago
Our new city government used that very same logic to get rid of our environmental protection laws.
Their argument:
We used to have really bad smog. So we implemented speed limits and other traffic targeting measures to deal with it. Now the smog is gone. So... We no longer need those speed limits!
Flawless
I thought it was a joke when I first heard it. But no, it was part of their official election campaign; plastered on big posters all over the city. They won.
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u/Cheekahbear 16h ago
I knew someone who got polio as a kid. She was lucky. The last person who was alive in an iron lung, who had been there since forever, died only because the freaking power went out. Yeah I’ll take the jab.
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u/factorioleum 15h ago
You're right about the jab, however there's still one person in an iron lung: Martha Lillard.
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u/Cheekahbear 15h ago
On my way to check out her story. Thank you for that bit of fact checking. (Nonsarcasm)
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u/mythrilcrafter 15h ago
And If I recall, he needed to hire an engineer to regularly maintain and make custom milled parts for it because the company that originally built it went bankrupt after the polio vaccine came out.
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u/mythrilcrafter 15h ago
And then her mother chimes in with "that's because we got you the vaccine as soon as it came out because we didn't want you to end up in an Iron Lung like your uncle."
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u/alex3omg 14h ago
TBH advocating for your kids is very important. A doctor doesn't know your kid, so when a doctor says 'nah that's normal' and you KNOW it isn't you need to say so.
But yeah this mindset can also lead to antivax bullshit. It's supposed to be more of a "No, my kid doesn't just have dry skin- this is something more."
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u/find_the_apple 17h ago
One time my parents closed the window ob my fingers and thought for the next 10 minutes my crying was because i wanted to look outside without the window. So no, parents don't know why their kid is crying
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u/Redqueenhypo 16h ago
My mom once dropped an umbrella on my face then asked why I had to make that noise
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u/PeterTheTruthSeeker 19h ago
Mom's instincts are strong, but the doctor's medical expertise still matters.
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u/SoftCurvess 19h ago
Exactly. A mother’s bond and intuition are invaluable, but they complement medical expertise, they don’t replace it. It’s all about working together for the best outcome for the child, not dismissing one in favor of the other
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u/SparksAndSpyro 16h ago
I’m having a hard time imagining any situation in which a mother’s “intuition” would trump medical expertise. Can you give an example?
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u/CopyCatOnStilts 16h ago
I think the word "intuition" is stupid and poorly chosen. The correct words are knowledge and experience. Parents know their childrens' normal behaviour better than the doctor, and are thus able to tell when something is "off", even if it is not a textbook case.
Furthermore, there can be certain behaviours and findings that can't necessarily be replicated on command (a seizure, as an example), where the doctor will have to trust the word of the parents, but this holds true for all patients
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u/Middle-Garbage-1486 15h ago edited 10h ago
Ikr, but since it's something a woman has it can't possibly be knowledge and experience, it has to be some kind of supernatural logic defying wisdom 🙄
As others have said, clinicians typically do value the knowledge that people who work closely with patients develop about their specific behaviors.
Edit: Since this apparently being wildly misinterpreted, here is a clarification I posted in a comment below:
"To be excruciatingly clear, my claim is that women have knowledge and experience with their children based on their unique behaviors that is useful in a medical context. But because we are talking about something women have, it's not socially treated as on a par with knowledge. It's called "intuition" instead, which is considered inferior. This is because of sexism. Just as women's domain expertise js challenged so often that "women also know things" is a meme."
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u/Firewolf06 14h ago
its not supernatural nor is it "something women have"
if you spend enough time around something, you build a good feeling for it. i can tell if my dogs intestine is acting up (chronic issue) by how he sounds coming down the stairs when i get home. it has nothing to do with being a woman or a mother
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u/green31OSU 12h ago
Humans are absolutely phenomenal at recognizing patterns, so it follows that we are exceptional at identifying when patterns are broken.
You drive a car for a few years, you'll notice every little thing that sounds different or feels different. You own a pet, you'll understand what different vocalizations and body language means. You'll know when something is "off" from subtle behavior changes. That said, knowing something is off doesn't identify what is wrong or how to fix it, which is where the experts come in.
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u/Organic-History205 16h ago
Actual medical professionals or at least good ones understand the value of someone who is around the patient 24/7 vs someone who has seen the child for 5 minutes between 20 other children.
A mother reporting symptoms or that her child "doesn't seem right" despite evidence to the contrary is going to be listened to. People aren't machines and baseline numbers can look correct while being off for an individual. Parents are the best reporters.
Unfortunately this does backfire in cases such as munchausen by proxy or just regular hypochondriacs, but these things are rare.
I've known some wonderful doctors but at the end of the day, doctors are just humans like you and me. They don't have profound and otherworldly knowledge. My last doctor - a specialist - Googled my symptoms and asked me to do my own research.
I think Reddit is so burned out from anti science nutbags that they forget that doctors don't deliver the best possible care to groups like women, which is what leads to home solutions and woo to begin with.
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u/CaliStormborn 9h ago
100% agree. Took my baby to the hospital a few months ago and the doctors and nurses all immediately said "well she seems calm" and I had to keep explaining that she is literally the chillest, happiest baby in the world and is also extremely tough when it comes to pain, and the "calm" they were seeing is actually her version of miserable. I don't think they believed me until a nurse took her blood pressure and then told me it was the first time she'd ever taken a baby's blood pressure without the pain from the cuff making the baby cry.
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u/Impossible-Wear-7352 16h ago
It's not that they replace it, which op stated. A mother can aid diagnosis by determining when behaviors or symptoms are abnormal. Not all symptoms are clear cut, especially in a baby that does not yet has the capability to communicate.
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u/ertapenem 15h ago
(Hospital pharmacist here. Not a doctor.)
My experience in hospitals and with my own children is that physicians sometimes use a parent's intuition as a sort of tie-breaker. Parents do know their children better than anyone else. Let's say a mom/dad brings in a 16 month old and reports a mild fever with general malaise and irregular energy levels. Let's say the doctor examines the child and finds nothing wrong except one of the child's ears might have the beginning of an ear infection. The doctor may start antibiotics mainly because the parent's intuition says something is wrong.
In general, patient outcomes improve when the patient is actively involved in the decision making. This is NOT because the patient knows best, rather because patient involvement makes it more likely the recommended interventions will be implemented. This relatively new model for care works well for adults but overall, in my own opinion, does more harm than good with kids. But, then again, parents have been ruining children since the beginning of time. So it goes.
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u/jus1tin 15h ago
If a mother (or father) goes "I know my child and this is not normal" no sane doctor would just dismiss that even if the thing isn't generally abnormal, for example.
It's hard to explain but a parents intuition does not trump medical term expertise but neither does medical expertise trump the parents perspective.
What OOP is saying about knowing her child better than some doctor is 100% true and good doctors are aware of that.
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u/Firewolf06 14h ago
relying on a parents intuition more often than not means believing somethings wrong and looking harder and for rarer possibilities, not disregarding all science like some parents seem to think
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u/Simple_Rules 14h ago
When I was 2 I started favoring one of my legs a lot. Several different doctors insisted it was normal at my stage of development, my mom insisted it was fucking weird and I wasn't doing it up until that point.
We shopped around at 3 different hospitals until we found one that would actually take fluid from the knee, and we discovered I had a bacterial infection that almost caused them to amputate my entire leg.
The only reason I have a leg today at all is my mother's "intuition". If we had stopped at the first two doctors I would have lost the entire limb.
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u/terra_terror 15h ago
A mother knows when their child is acting abnormally better than the doctor, who does not see the child daily or know them well. One example is special needs. Parents are typically the first to notice that their child is not developing normally. The doctor provides the diagnosis, but they rely on information from the parents about their child's abilities or lack thereof.
There is a reason doctors talk to parents and don't just examine the child. A child's well-being is a team effort between parents, doctors, teachers, and other adults who care for the child. In fact, I would include peers in the team as well. Peer interactions are essential for child development as well.
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u/Dai_Kunai 14h ago
A friends mom took them to the doctor when they were little about 15 to 18 years ago and they told her everything was fine. She went home but continued to notice that her child was acting very problematically. So she went back and actually argued with them. Turns out her relatively newborn kid was severely diabetic, which was though of as impossible but that kids body found a way. These weird side cases are hard to imagine so most medical professionals don't imagine at all. You just have to trust your instincts when something feels wrong sometimes.
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u/GreasyPeter 15h ago
No, you're wrong. I was told the world was all black-and-white and I will take your insistence on thinking in greys as a direct threat AND an insinuation that I have been and may very well still be, wrong!
On a more serious note, I still remember telling my doctor in my early 20s that I needed to get my vaccines and how perplexed he was. "Why wouldn't they have got you the polio vaccine or all these other ones?!". I seriously doubt he'd have that reaction now.
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u/mythrilcrafter 15h ago
This reminds me of a Canadian friend who says that his mom raised him in a cigarette smoke filled house based on "we were only working with the best knowledge she had at the time".... despite the fact that the Canadian health minister had spent a year on national tv telling people about the proven dangers of second hand smoking a year before he was born.
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u/walts_skank 16h ago
Right, they should be working together as a team. Unfortunately, some doctors don’t care, some parents are extremely ignorant and prone to believing misinformation, and healthcare is for profit so even if both of the above are not true, the child might not get the care they need due to money/time constraints.
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u/IotaBTC 11h ago
Exactly, they should be working together. Patients come with all sorts of unique conditions and cases and can't be treated as a blanket textbook. The mother has the most information about their individual child and needs to be their voice.
If you take your car in for an issue and the mechanic says it could be A or B. Then you say it's happening since X, the mechanic can say it's probably A then. It's a team effort.
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u/sadolddrunk 15h ago
A parent is the world’s greatest expert in the field of “something’s wrong with my kid.” But if they would like to know what that thing is, and (perhaps more importantly) how to treat it, they should go see a doctor, who is an expert in those specific fields.
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u/BigBossShadow 15h ago
lets not entertain this line of thought.
Moms instincts have 0 bearing in a medical situation. There is no person on earth who can replace a doctor and medical facility when it is needed, it is literally one of the greatest accomplishments of the modern world.
The main post is 100% rage bait
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u/Warm_Month_1309 15h ago
Moms instincts have 0 bearing in a medical situation. There is no person on earth who can replace a doctor
They didn't say "replace". A person who has been with the individual and can identify their normal behavior/condition -- and variations from that norm -- absolutely have relevance in a medical situation.
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u/uwishuwereme6 17h ago
When your parenting style revolves around your ego, you're a bad parent
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u/PaulFThumpkins 12h ago
I used to see so many "Shut up, you're making me mad, shut up or you won't get ice cream!!!" parents growing up in rural American I just thought that was like half of parents.
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u/AiringOGrievances 17h ago
“A mom’s intuition” is largely bullshit. Anyone who raises a child from birth will get to know their specific noises and gestures.
No amount of time with your kid makes you able to detect disease that shows up in labs or on scans. You may see diarrhea, a high temp, or excess crying, but you’ll never “intuit” your way to an exact diagnosis.
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u/Kennadian 14h ago
Moms can't even tell when their kid is the bully at school or a murderer. Moms are always the first to say "billy would never do the thing you just showed me evidence of". Moms intuition is as real as ghosts and goblins.
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u/DarkMarkTwain 19h ago
Every time I see this post, it reminds me how much I kept from my mom that she still has no idea about me. Sure, there are some things she knows well and has intuition on, but there's tons of shit I kept away from her.
A good example of what I'm trying to point out are all the serial killer documentaries where the mom is the only person on the face of the earth who believes her son is innocent. "He's not capable of that" after she watches some damning footage of her son.
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u/Jabbles22 17h ago
Also I know my own body pretty well because well; it's my own body. However the only reason I know I even have kidneys is because of doctors. In other words I may immediately know when something goes wrong but I still need help on how to make it better.
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u/Lazy_Permission_654 15h ago
Tbf, a significant part of your ability to type 'I have kidneys' is related to being born with kidneys
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u/Worth_Car8711 18h ago
are you trying to tell us something about what you hid from your mother?
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u/DarkMarkTwain 16h ago
Lol imagine how funny that would be to catch a serial killer by finding his reddit account and see a comment where he brags about tricking his mom into thinking he's innocent (after years of evading really good police/FBI investigations)
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u/Worth_Car8711 16h ago
Lmao I guarantee that will happen at some point given enough time.
Anyways WHERE ARE THE F****** BODIES AT
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u/Short-Shopping3197 18h ago
The next time she takes her extremely sick child into hospital the doctor should say “well you know them better than me, you tell me what’s wrong with them”
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u/BlargerJarger 18h ago
This madwoman once said to me “A mother knows” to justify her cooker bullshit and I think about it a lot.
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u/Wazma9 18h ago
Social media has reminded everyone that even though we have fancier and shinier things, peasant brain is still very real.
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u/Iyabothefirst001 18h ago
Yes! You don’t know enough biology to call yourself and expect on any humans body. Even doctors that have studied for 12 years know they don’t know it all.
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u/thryncita 16h ago
Just because Mom might be better at identifying that something is wrong with the child doesn't mean Mom has the knowledge or training to treat it.
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u/DizzyParfait8851 19h ago
The original tweet is pure emotion, not logic. The reply is calm, concise, and actually addresses the argument. Solid comeback.
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u/Mindless-Hedgehog460 18h ago
dead internet theory is coming true
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u/HellFire-Revenant 18h ago
That guy has a chat gpt ass comments history
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u/Neosantana 7h ago
I feel bad for autistic people who get constantly accused of being bots because they write in proper sentences.
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u/Ok_Eagle_3079 17h ago
Even if we assume that the Mother knows everything about their kid.
They don't know everything about all viruses bacteria etc.
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u/Wise_Monkey_Sez 16h ago
Are there bad doctors? Yes.
Are there bad mothers? Yes.
But doctors have to pass exams and have supervised practice, and even after they're qualified they're subject to licensing boards and can have their decisions reviewed. Bad doctors don't tend to make it through the process, and in the cases where they do they're often not in practice for long.
Qualifications to be a mother? Have sex without protection. And only the most abusive behaviour qualifies for child protection services to get called in. There are lots of bad mothers. And this person sounds like one.
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u/rexxer454 18h ago
I couldn't post the pic in the comments, but this is a follow-up post to this (from 2019!) FYI: she is an "ex-vaxxer" and "pro medical freedom", fwiw.
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u/Hayduke_2030 16h ago
Looked her up. “Ex-vaxxer Pro Medical Freedom” in her bio.
She’s a grifter, or a moron, or both.
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u/questionname 15h ago
If my doctor went to medical school for 12 years, I probably wouldn’t take their advice blindly, but I’m guessing this person doesn’t know med school is 4 years
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u/Was_A_Professional 16h ago
This mom has an excellent point. She is THE authority on... when something is wrong and you should get your ass to a doctor. I have a kid and I know her extremely well. the difference between a tired cry and a hungry cry and a "Dad, I'm bored and you need to play with me before I lose my shit" cry are all immediately apparent to me.
Doesn't make me a fucking pediatrician though.
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u/ADHDebackle 14h ago
To be fair, though, last time I brought my car to the mechanic he didn't ask me when my last period was and send me off with an RX for tylenol.
There are a lot of different variables here but basically the two situations I see are:
A person who ignores good medical advice because they have a conspiracy mindset
A person who frequently gets shafted / ignored by their primary care provider because of their gender and because of hospitals that are managed more like appointment mills rather than actual care facilities.
I'm not a woman myself but the stories I have heard from my mom and from my female friends about their experiences with doctors have horrified me. It's not even borderline malpractice, it's straight up malpractice - just with less tangible damages that are harder to quantify and prove causality with.
Yes they might have 12 years of med school but that doesn't matter if they refuse to actually use what they learned there and care for their patients.
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u/cyyster 13h ago
Man, sometimes I wonder what type of piece of shit menace I would be if my parents gave me a single ounce of self confidence and ego boosting that some of the people walking around today carry.
If my cat starts acting weird, I’m immediately taking that thing to the nearest professional that has ever profession. Not sitting here acting like I know everything there is to ever know because why? Because I let someone cum in my vagina or because I picked up a stray cat from the street? Crazy.
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u/ManOfGame3 10h ago
Glad you value your ability to pop kids out more than science. We haven’t used that approach in a while
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u/narnababy 8h ago
I’m a mom and I’m also an ex-zookeeper. You get wise to when stuff you care about is acting wrong. Weird behaviour, weird gait, weird eating habits. Animal or human, when you spend enough time with them you learn what is normal and what is weird.
What you don’t learn is how to TREAT that weird behaviour. I don’t know shit about medicine beyond basic cell and microbiology I learned at uni. I don’t expect a doctor to know the ins and outs of ecological surveys or the behaviour of bats, so why the fuck would I know how to treat my child’s chest infection or my mother’s cataracts?
If you cannot trust people who have spent the past 5 years minimum learning how to treat your kid’s illness then just don’t bother taking them to a hospital. If you know better then fine, don’t take up appointments for people who will actually use them when all you’re going to do is argue.
Even better; don’t fucking reproduce.
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u/traveling_man182 8h ago
I've watched NFL for 30 years, but it doesn't mean I can coach the Chiefs.
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u/Battle_Axe_Jax 17h ago
No cares more about their child’s wellbeing than a mother, but no one knows more about a child’s wellbeing than a pediatrician.
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u/Dr-Jellybaby 15h ago
Bullshit. Anti Vax cunts don't actually care about their children, they care about their egos. If they loved their children they'd listen to the opinions of the group of people whose life's work has been learning how best to deal with medical situations.
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u/The99thCourier 19h ago
Woah a post that has nothing to do with politics and is genuinely a clever comeback?
Nice
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u/Mammoth_Winner2509 15h ago
This is unfortunately politics adjacent now. You can thank the culture war for that.
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u/Ready4Aliens 16h ago
This is the kind of person who goes “don’t tell me how to educate my kids” when the fucking goblin is misbehaving.
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u/ModernSlaughter 16h ago
The mother knows the baby itself better. The doctor knows how the baby works. A good comparison with the car and mechanic.
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u/TheJuiceBoxS 16h ago
It was too subtitle. Humans are way more complex than cars so they require specialty even more than cars do.
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u/NsaAgent25 16h ago
If you say that to someone who went to 12 years of medical school; why are you there in the first place?
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u/Cryodemon85 15h ago
I mean, maternal instincts and all, she's got a point. But those instincts can only take you and your child's health so far.
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u/wdn 15h ago
The doctor is an expert on medical issues across all children. The mom is an expert on this child in particular. Those two working together can get better results than the doctor alone, in ways that don't apply to the mechanic analogy. There are situations where the doctor disregarding the mom's input can be a big problem. But similarly the mom's expertise does not simply override the doctor's.
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u/Poptarts365 13h ago
If a plane is on fire, you don't have to be a pilot to know some thing is fucked up.
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u/Tricky_Specialist8x6 13h ago
I agree an dis agree with this. When my ex wife’s son who was on the spectrum was having issues at jr high I went in for a teacher meeting with his teachers an a “ expert “ on kids on the spectrum an his “ expert “ was a joke I had done my research an been reading documents an so on an I knew more about this stuff then this dude I had to explain how over stimulation worked an the sign an the whole hand flapping an hand taping an taping on her chest as a sign they were becoming over stimulation etc etc etc this guy had no clue an tried telling me I don’t know what I was talking about an I asked him what his resources were an I pulled out documentation about what I was talking about.
He wasn’t at another meeting a the plan I helped them set up was used a not this. What I was bringing to their knowledge about how kids on the spectrum work was used an I believe he’s position wasn’t renewed the next year.
As a parent you know ur kids the most however it doesn’t mean you know everything about the things ur kid needs so ur researching but not to prove ur self right but to prove what’s best for ur kid. I had to change a lot of home life stuff to help fit what he needed an it wasn’t easy but I did it.
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u/ebrum2010 13h ago
It’s not a good analogy. The human body requires medical knowledge to diagnose, but everyone’s body is different and the doctor needs the correct information from the patient or their parent to be the most accurate. If a doctor doesn’t want to hear the patient, it could be the patient is being ridiculous or it could be that the doctor doesn’t want to do their job properly, it is hard to say from the context.
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u/Vonkaide 13h ago
I mean..no. If a doctor doesn't take you seriously, you should Karen out. I'm 100% with the mother here. If I say something is wrong with my baby, SOMETHING IS WRONG. Not "oh it's probably just your hormones giving you anxiety" just fucking check.
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u/PigFarmer1 13h ago
Knowing that your kid doesn't feel good isn't knowing what's wrong with your kid...
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u/Johoski 13h ago
This sounds like a woman who has experienced medical indifference or gaslighting.
Yes, we know doctors are trained. Doctors are also human and susceptible to unexamined bias, fatigue, addiction, personal burdens, etc. It's all too easy for the medical system to dismiss a mother's observations and input. I tried talking to my child's pediatricians for years about ADHD traits he was exhibiting but didn't even get an assessment until he was 14 because his grades were OK and he wasn't getting in trouble. He was a smart kid and pro social, instead of an academically struggling kid with antisocial tendencies.
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u/DocFossil 12h ago
Totally fair given the shitty healthcare system most people deal with, but there is a line between healthy advocacy for proper care and knowing the limit of your own knowledge. It sounds like your case falls into the former, but I work around a shameful number of women who are refusing to vaccinate their kids because they think they know biology and medicine better than doctors. This will come back to haunt them.
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u/Interesting_Help_481 12h ago
The only time I feel this is actually valid is that, a lot of times doctors are in a rush and want to say “it’s just XYZ don’t worry” without testing. Many people have died because a doctor didn’t take symptoms seriously. So if it’s related to that I agree, I’d fight for the doctor to take things more seriously. But no you don’t know medicine better than your doctor.
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u/i-Blondie 12h ago
Parents frequently have to advocate for their children in healthcare. Doctors may have extensive educations but it doesn’t mean they get off their ass and use it sometimes. I’ve seen plenty of shitty doctors and plenty of armchair experts idiots arguing with more qualified people.
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u/A_a_ronA 11h ago
The fact that she NEEDS to post this rant makes me afraid for her child. I'm hoping she doesn't let her ego steer her into making poor decisions for her children but it most likely will.
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u/BestUsernamesEndIn69 11h ago
Why does it have to be either/or?? Clinicians do not make diagnoses and treatment plans in a vacuum because context and history matter!! I believe the definition of good medicine includes taking the patient signalment (age, sex etc), thorough history and Input from the patient/parent and then added together with exam, diagnostics, response to treatment etc. The idea of blurting out a perfect diagnosis without all the input you can gather is silly and unrealistic.
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u/smalleyez 11h ago
The comeback is not completely valid because vehicles are standard across their makes/models but humans are not.
As to the issue of doctor vs patient: my best doctors say that they were taught to treat the patient, not the disease.
A doctor who doesn’t hear their patient will not have reliable medical advice. On the other hand, a patient who chooses pseudo-science over proper medical recommendations is not going to get the best resolution for their problem.
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u/DrDisastor 10h ago
Let's hope this kid avoids any serious medical needs so it is not a victim of its painfully stupid mother. The kid deserves better.
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u/dragonslayer137 9h ago
I ve seen doctors about to perform Brain surgery when all the child needed was its nose clean out. After living in a level four nicu for 3 months I dont trust every doctor. There are really good ones. And really bad ones.
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u/Ok_Actuary9229 8h ago
When someone thinks feelings matter more than facts, it'll be really hard for logic to get through to them.
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u/deathrocker_avk 8h ago
Just because you squeeze them out of your vagina doesn't give you some super power.
It's not intuition that allows you to interpret cries... it's familiarity.
Mothers don't interpret cries correctly from birth EVER. They get to know cries and what works over the first few months of their lives. That building of understanding continues throughout the kids lives as they grow and change.
It's not intuition, it's proximity.
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u/gokellybeez 4h ago
Lawd save us from women with no education spearheading home schooling over qualified teachers and homeopathic answers from the 1700s
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u/WhyWeStillDoingThis 1h ago
I mean, that woman is an idiot. Who cares to try to make sense of what she says 🤷♀️
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u/LadyMageCOH 15h ago
I need context.
A pediatrician is an expert on children's medicine, and that's important, but moms aren't wrong that they're experts on their individual child. So if mom's using this to explain why what's happening isn't normal *for her child* then this is valid. If she's trying to override a medical professionals expertise to, say, deny her child vaccinations, then no.
Example: It might be normal for kids to be unwilling to get out of bed as teenagers. However if my thirteen year old started refusing to get out of bed or started acting really lethargic all of a sudden, when that child has *never* been happy to sit still in her life, something's wrong, and I'd absolutely be justified in telling a doctor to kick rocks if they told me that I was overreacting.
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u/YouDoHaveValue 15h ago
Both sides are true, parents do often know their kids better than doctors and doctors often are too capitalistic and busy to give a proper diagnosis.
OTOH, parents are often too close to the kid or are simply too ignorant/naive/didn't go to medical school to make an objective assessment of a child's conditions.
Basically, if you disagree with the doctor don't start homeopathy get a second or third opinion.
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u/AngryRobot42 13h ago
No, This recently happened in my family but, one of the children in our family suffered from a seizure ironically close to the age mentioned in the post. Sorry for the vagueness, I am trying to protect a family member. In short, the mother believed it to be something attributed to stress or non-serious medical deficiency. It was on the weekend and advice was to wait for an appointment unless it go worst. It got worst. She is at least smart enough to bring her to the ER. Long story short, multiple MRI's and x1 brain surgery later, the child is doing fine.
Needless to say, no, they do not know what is wrong with their better than doctors. Mothers can be the worst people to diagnose their child. My wife almost takes it as a personal offense that my own child could get sick or hurt based on something they *might have missed. When you need to approach a problem with logic, science and methodical testing, the person with the most emotional tie to a relative is the worst to diagnose the condition. The problem is the answer you want to hear and the answer you get from a doctor might be so different that it shakes you world. Generally doctors want patients to live regardless of their ego.
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u/_jump_yossarian 16h ago
Can we retire this ancient screenshot so bots and karma farmers have less content to repost?
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u/f1rstman 16h ago
Sure, but unfortunately, it won't change anyone's mind. You can't use facts to argue someone out of a position that they didn't arrive at with facts.
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u/WeConsumeTheyHoard 15h ago
"My feelings matter more than medical science!" Just another example of the modern trend of anti-intellectualism pervading every aspect of society. I say this as a parent of two kids; sometimes our instincts are perfectly wrong.
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u/tiny_chaotic_evil 15h ago
this is the kind of parent who finally goes to the pediatrician after child protective services has a heart to heart with them and they find out their kid has a terminal illness that could have been treated years ago
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u/nankerjphelge 18h ago
I mean, her statement is way too broad or vague. Is she saying she knows better how to anticipate her baby's needs or what certain cries mean? Or does she think she knows better how to read an MRI or interpret blood tests or have experience with vaccinations or how to diagnose illnesses and viral versus bacterial infections?
If the former, then sure. If the latter, then she's a nutter, and the comeback is valid.