I actually think about the ignored psychological effects of dealing with that level of physical pain so soon after being born a lot.
Birth is already a traumatic experience for both mother and infant. But to then immediately, with no anesthesia, cut an extremely sensitive part of the infants body off? That has to leave some kind of mental scarring.
I was born with a genetic condition affecting my collagen (Ehlers Danlos), which meant my bones were overly soft and, since I was breach til moments before birth, my legs were bowed pretty severely. This was in 1971, and the treatment at that time was the doctors literally bent my legs into position manually and then braced them for my first few years. That’s not how they deal with it nowadays, because they learnt it was horribly painful.
I don’t remember that initial experience, obviously, but my mother tells me several years later when I was a young child and having problems walking, she took me to the doctor and they finally worked out that I was in excruciating pain all the time. They asked why I hadn’t said anything and I told them it was because everyone was always in excruciating pain, but nobody else was complaining about it, so I shouldn’t either. I’d been in pain since birth, and just figured it was normal.
That experience prevented me from getting proper care and made my early childhood hell. I still have emotional trauma from it. So yeah, early pain is not benign.
I actually think about the ignored psychological effects of dealing with that level of physical pain so soon after being born a lot.
Birth is already a traumatic experience for both mother and infant. But to then immediately, with no anesthesia, cut an extremely sensitive part of the infants body off? That has to leave some kind of mental scarring.
I can actually speak to this.
I was born with a genetic condition affecting my collagen (Ehlers Danlos), which meant my bones were overly soft and, since I was breach til moments before birth, my legs were bowed pretty severely. This was in 1971, and the treatment at that time was the doctors literally bent my legs into position manually and then braced them for my first few years. That’s not how they deal with it nowadays, because they learnt it was horribly painful.
I don’t remember that initial experience, obviously, but my mother tells me several years later when I was a young child and having problems walking, she took me to the doctor and they finally worked out that I was in excruciating pain all the time. They asked why I hadn’t said anything and I told them it was because everyone was always in excruciating pain, but nobody else was complaining about it, so I shouldn’t either. I’d been in pain since birth, and just figured it was normal.
That experience prevented me from getting proper care and made my early childhood hell. I still have emotional trauma from it. So yeah, early pain is not benign.