Found In Translation

One morning in New York City public clinic, a mother sits down and tells me her 4 month old son has been vomiting his formula for the past 3 months. The boy’s weight and height were adequate. Enough formula was being digested. Maybe the child needed something other than the standard formula. “What did the doctor tell you?” I asked. Mother told me she had not told any of this to her son’s pediatrician. I was concerned because chronic vomiting can corrode her child’s esophagus, throat and vocal chords.

Mother told the pediatrician nothing about the vomiting because of something going on between her husband and herself. Father, in her opinion, was chronically anxious for their first child. It appeared as if when Father thought his son needed more care, Mother reacted by thinking their child needed less. The child was caught in the crossfire with a possibly damaging condition.

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