Young mother in tears as GP ‘tells her not to have more children’

[terilou87]

just read this in the telegraph, how awful, i had to share.www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenpolitics/population/10061760/Young-mother-in-tears-as-GP-tells-her-not-to-have-more-children-she-claims.html i would be so if this was me.

Some of the comments on there are foul :(

i know some people are cant really say on here. any way, poor woman. glad she made a complaint to the practice.

Well it's not the GP's job to tell her to have another child or not BUT it's an issue everybody always has a view on and tbh if she is going to get prgenant again she will met people who think it's fab and people who think she's crazy. Is she going to burst in to tears everytime The GP was probably wondering if she would want to go on a longer lasting form of contraception.

I'm just wondering how on earth they square what they said in he first paragraph: "Mother-of-two Charlotte Comer, 21, went to get antibiotics for her tonsillitis."

with the last paragraph: "A statement issued by the NHS said that the doctor had offered well intended advice on contraception."

Since when has contraception been part of the assessment/treatment protocol for a patient with a sore throat?!?

northernlurkeri see your point about other people having views and opinions, it is controversial and yes you can expect it from certain people, but perhaps as a gp, he should of been more professional and not let his personal opinions and views effect the way he treats his patient. imo

Antibiotics can stop the pill from working. So it isn't weird for contraception to have been mentioned.

When DS was born, I went to the GP to get some ABs for a water infection when he was about three weeks old. The doctor questioned my date of birth, because I was 18 when he was born, then looked at me with raised eyebrows when I confirmed that the year was correct on the screen. Patronizing bastard.

It's fucking horrific being a young mum sometimes.

Hope this individual is okay.

I bet they wouldn't have said they same thing if she was middle class, married and ten years older.

It's clear from the report that he said considerablly more than an enquiry about whether his patient was on any other medication.

sirboobalot i got this off my mw when i fell pregnant the second time, she said maybe we should discuss contraception so it doesn't happen again, i told her i was happy to be preg and that i'm old enough to make my own decisions. i don't know if she realized how patronizing she was. i was 19 with my first and 20 with my second. but your right i doubt i she would of said that had i been 30.

this country is becoming overpopulated because of its open door policy not because of poor mothers like this.
its is a well known fact that the average English family only have 2.4 children.
this doctor is a complete arse.

I dont get why this is news

This sounds like something my previous gp would have said. At dc3 6week check, he asked me if all my children had the same father? When I told him yes, he said he was surprised.

I personally think that people should be more responsible about the number of children they have. We're certainly stopping at two.
However, i would never ever dictate my views to anyone else- it's a personal choice that we've made. And saying we should adopt China's one child policy is just flipping nuts.
This GP had no right to spout his personal views to this woman, and i do agree he wouldn't have said it if she was slightly older (i had my first in my teens, so i know how people think it's ok to talk down to you and tell you how you should be parenting). I'm glad she's kicking up a stink and i hope the GP is reprimanded for his actions.

I can believe it.

When I was 22, unmarried and pregnant my GP gave me a lecture on how I should get married to DP as it would increase the chances of us staying together.

One memorable line was "you'll get lots of presents like a dinenr set and someone may even buy you a washing machine"

Both myself and dp had good jobs, owned our home and I had a perfectly fine washing machine as well as a Denby dinner set. I complained about that old witch.

Five years old but news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7071611.stm says that the average family only has 1.8 children.

We're stopping at 2 because I can't imagine coping with more (despite both DP and I being from large families)

If the average family only has 1.8, there's plenty of room for families with 3 (or more) kids before we even bring the average up to maintain our population - and that'll need to be the younger mothers because if most people are starting late they'll just not have time to fit more than one or two in.

The GP was unbelievably rude but tbf she is quite young to have two children

Perhaps it was a contraception talk gone wrong.

He should have been talking to her about her BMI. That's what my GP normally yaps onto me about.

i had two children at 21, 4 years later ive just had my third, im treated so differently now, until i mention ds and dd1.

oh and shock horror they all have the same dad and we have a rock solid relationship. Hate this kind of crappy judgements.

Sounds like the GP was having a shit day. Yes, inappropriate comments but they seem more of a general rant than a personal attack on the patient.
Maybe if GPs didn't have to mop up the mess that people make of their lives day in and day out and had more than 5 minutes per patient, they would be all sunshine and smiles and full of positive comments for everyone!

When pregnant with ds4 the registrar informed me that I could be steralised during my elcs, I was 33 so not young. I've had lots of contraception advice from the gp over the last 2 years. (3 pg in 2 years) including "you will be ok using nothing for a few weeks as your breast feeding" I won't be listening to that advice!

"mop up the mess people make of their lives" if you don't want to help people don't become a gp!

I would have told him to stfu and stormed out. Cheeky sod.

The GP was way out of order and I can understand why the woman was upset. Why it's national news, I'm not so sure.

The mother is a travel agent on maternity leave (her baby is 7 months) and her partner is a courier. One comment in the DT said 'tell her to stop having kids so she can go back to work and her partner can have a rest'. Oh, okay, so who'll look after the kids and how will they afford wrap-around childcare?? The ignorance of some people to the realities of life astounds me.

I had my 2nd at 20, at his 6 week check my gp said to me, shall we sort some contraception out, another baby now would be a disaster! I'd had the implant in the day before but no it wouldn't have been a disaster. I'm not planning a dc3 but that's up to us to decide!