You may be thinking Yemen, Ukraine, Israel, and if you are a woman, perhaps Afghanistan. If you are a pre-term fetus, it is definitely the uterus. I’ll get back to these latter thoughts in just a bit. Or maybe you are thinking theaters, night clubs, schools, places of worship, and shopping centers if you are cogitating American mass gun violence. All of these thoughts are valid, of course.
Last night, as I was preparing myself a late-night snack of Geisha Smoked Oysters on Ritz crackers, I ripped the metal top off the oyster tin and inadvertently hit the dorsum of my right-hand little finger. Damn! Those lids are thin metal and quite sharp. Presently, I was leaving a trail of blood drops on the kitchen floor. I so hate it when that happens! I applied a moist, paper towel, torniquet until I could get to the bathroom to apply a proper compressive Band-Aid dressing. Sigh. The bleeding abated, and I returned to preparing my snack.
This otherwise inconsequential episode reminded me that in the Winter of 1977, Susan and I were sitting in our first-year medical school class hearing a lecture about Pediatrics. Susan and I were not yet an item in those days. Susan sat towards the front of the right side of the auditorium, and I sat with my then romantic interest in the middle of its left side.
The topic this particular day was accidents and injuries in childhood. It was an important topic because the leading cause of death among children is unintentional injury (auto accidents, drowning, asphyxia, head trauma, burns, poisoning, etc.)
That day, we learned about esophageal injury due to lye ingestion. We learned about burns caused by toddlers reaching for a pot handle on the stove and so dousing themselves in boiling water. In the next two years, during our clinical rotations, we would see those kinds of injuries – the ones that were not fatal.
I left that lecture with two thoughts. The first thought was “The Kitchen is a dangerous place for toddlers,” and the second was “The Bathroom is a dangerous place for children.” I already knew about boiling water injuries because one of my younger cousins had done just that – inflicting on himself burns that left part of his face and right chest permanently scarred despite multiple plastic surgeries. Fuck!
I don’t recall hearing about infant and child car seats during that lecture, and I am certain that bicycle helmets were not yet a thing. Both would become centerpieces in preventing unintentional childhood injuries and deaths in the years to come.
It turns out that in Geriatrics, the Kitchen and Bathroom are also dangerous places. The bathroom is dangerous because of its hard, unyielding, and often slippery flooring which can lead us to fall with consequent orthopedic and/or neurological injuries. Falls are an important geriatric syndrome that are most often multi-factorial (involving our own health issues such as poor balance, lost strength, poor coordination, etc.) and our environment (wet floors, loose rugs, and tripping hazards such as extension cords and various forms of clutter). The kitchen is dangerous mostly because of the stove and all the sharp objects that we store and use there – including tins of mussels, oysters, sardines, and the like. Merde!
And this brings me to a sad commentary on the dangerous places for women, mothers, and infants. America and Afghanistan (other Middle Eastern countries too) are dangerous places for women and mothers. They are dangerous because of toxic patriarchy. They are dangerous because of institutionalized misogyny. They are dangerous because of forced pregnancy. Since the SCOTUS Dobb’s decision, maternal mortality has only increased. Thank you, justices Alito, Thomas, Coney Barret, and “I like beer” Kavanaugh. Alas!
As regards gestating in Mom’s uterus, your odds of being born healthy in America are only worsening. Today, I read a TMA medical news item regarding a recent CDC report that more than 3,700 cases of congenital syphilis were reported in 2022 – roughly 11 times the number recorded a decade ago! Congenital syphilis results in both stillbirths and infant deaths, not to mention deafness, blindness, and developmental disabilities. It is estimated that 90% of congenital syphilis can be prevented through early diagnosis and treatment.
But here we are with our collective national thumb up our national ass. If you are the fetus of a low-income mother, Mom’s uterus is a dangerous place. 🙁