Hospital trauma and how infant mental health and attachment isn’t always honoured

One morning, when my son was 8 months old, he woke up in a lot of pain. Within about 15 minutes he was white as a ghost, clammy, and alternating between screaming and writhing in pain then going floppy. We had no idea what was going on but we drove him to the hospital. We were honestly scared for his life along the way. The going floppy felt like he was losing consciousness, but we knew later that he was just kind of passing out from the pain.

When we got to the hospital my husband dropped us off at ED whilst he found a park. I took him in and the nurse looked at me and said "is he teething?"

I remember feeling so shut down. So dismissed. I was so panicked. She came out to look at him and said 'is he always this colour?' No, I said. BECAUSE HE IS NOT WELL.

We were seen by the doctors and he had intussusception, which is a telescoping of the bowel (and incredibly painful). It had started righting itself but they had to operate to make sure.

They needed to put a cannula in. I will never forget how traumatic that must have been for him. I was there the whole time, holding him, trying to soothe him, as they tried again and again until they got it. They said I didn't need to be there if it was hard for me.

In a way I respect that they are trying to care for parents. I also respect that some parents don’t want to be there to watch their kids in that.

But I do think we need to prioritise the care of the infant more than the discomfort of the parents.

He was scared, being held down and prodded, and they wanted to take away the one safe person. 

Later, he went into surgery. The beautiful nurses said I would be with him until he went to sleep. But once we got in there, the surgeon had a different idea. He kicked me out, with my son on the bed crying, surrounded by nurses and doctors, and no mum. I was escorted out, sobbing. I didn't have the strength to advocate for myself. I beat myself up about it for so long, that I couldn't advocate for my son.

When my daughter was 20 months, she had her tonsils and adenoids removed in surgery. There I was able to be with her until she went to sleep. But when she woke up from the anaesthetic, she was really upset and totally dysregulated.

But nobody called me.

It was only because my friend was working there - that she saw that Zali was not too good and let the nurses know that “I was okay” and they should let me in.

She was beside herself and I was so angry they didn’t call me earlier. She must have been so scared. I get that she was still drowsy from the anaesthetic. I get that the medical staff may be concerned about ‘parents making it worse’. But I AM the parent, and I get to choose when I respond to my child.

I have worked in the hospital system. I am no stranger to how things work. And our medical system is absolutely oh-so needed. Knox might have died without medical help. Zali would have continued to have had sleep apnoea.

But there are two narratives at play when I think about these experiences.

1. ‘First time anxious mum’. 

And I know this, because I used to read the medical charts. If a parent was ‘anxious’ in hospital because their kid was sick, if they asked too many questions, or was particularly upset- you better believe that somewhere, or in many places in their chart will be written ‘anxious mum’. I am sure it was written in Knox’s chart. Yes, I was bloody anxious. Because I was traumatised. I thought my son was dying. He was scared, in pain and I felt that too. My husband was traumatised too. Then, I was kicked out of the surgery. So yeah, I was anxious, and I was also a bit pissed off. Because attachment relationships are the buffer against traumatic experiences. And they got rid of that in that moment. That caused a rupture that I needed to repair. It also hurled me into a spiral of guilt and ‘not good enough’ self talk because I felt so bad and angry at myself that I couldn’t advocate for him.

2. “Babies don’t remember”.

Most of the hospital staff were absolutely incredible with my boy. They really were. Same with Zali. But the amount of times I heard something along the lines of us being ‘lucky he’s so young and won’t remember.” He may not have explicit memory of this event, but his body remembers the trauma. His nervous system remembers.

The idea that babies won’t remember is incredibly dismissive of their present experiences. Not only is it wildly inaccurate, but it makes me think.

If they won’t remember, why do we do anything we do with them?

If they won’t remember, should we just feed and clothe them until they do?

If they won’t remember, should we not care about who cares for them? Just get them somewhere to be looked after and kept alive until their capacity for explicit memory grows?

If they won’t remember, should we just do cry it out? Why does it matter if they won’t remember? 

Why does anything matter?

It’s Infant Mental Health Awareness Week and our aim is to help you to understand and see the needs of the infant. Their social and emotional development.

We want to convey how much their early experiences matter. Because we are literally wiring their brains through the ways that we see them, care for them and be with them. Their learning and growth develops in the context of their attachment relationships; so that’s where we need to start.

All infants deserve to feel safe, seen and secure.

We know that early trauma experiences matter. But it is not the traumatic experiences alone that have the most impact, it is whether a child felt connected and safe with a caregiver throughout the experience.

The secure attachment relationships act as a buffer against the negative consequences of early life trauma experiences.

That’s why we always come back to the relationship.

Babies are people too, and your caregiving matters.

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