Because parents are overwhelmed: more reports of neglected children

The mother came to the Zurich Children’s Hospital with her child due to an emergency. And the medical staff noticed that she was verbally abusing the child. Unusual, especially in such a situation. “We talked to the mother about it,” says Myriam Peter, senior doctor at the children’s hospital. “She replied that she was very stressed and actually needed support. We have connected her to possible contact points so that she can better deal with her child.”

The case is one of 679 reports of suspected child abuse received last year by the child protection group and victim advice center at the University Children’s Hospital Zurich. While physical abuse had increased over the past year it has now decreased again, but reports of neglect have increased and now represent a quarter of all cases. In 2017, only eleven percent of all reported cases were recorded as neglect.

Myriam Peter hopes that cases have not necessarily increased in absolute terms, but that the population is also more aware of neglect and psychological abuse and has therefore reported more cases. There is also emotional neglect, for example when a three-year-old child is left home alone for an hour. Physical neglect occurs when a child does not get enough food; Peter remembers a baby who came to the hospital because of infections, always gained weight and later came back much thinner. “He didn’t get enough food at home,” says Peter, “because his mother didn’t recognize his hunger signals.” The mother was mentally ill.

Not all cases are so clear. Neglect is often a gray area, says Peter, and it only becomes a problem if it occurs several times, for example if a child is regularly not dressed warmly enough. The child protection group does not always report a risk to the Kesb. Of all suspected cases of child abuse, there were only 45 last year.

“We try to make it clear to the parents that their behavior is not good for the child,” says the senior doctor. “Then we will see what we can do next.” Usually, like the mother with the malnourished child, they do not see the needs of the children because their own problems are great. “These are parents who have recently become unemployed, parents who are going through a divorce or are involved in heated arguments.”

It is important that neighbors or grandparents have the moral courage to call the hospital’s child protection group, because if they do nothing there is a risk of serious psychological damage later, says Peter. The suspicion is not always confirmed: In 123 of all reports of abuse last year, the suspicion could not be substantiated, but neither could it be dispelled. The children and their families are then connected to other care institutions or closely monitored.

“After one visit, we usually cannot detect abuse or neglect in the emergency department. This makes it all the more important to have attentive pediatricians, but also daycare centers or neighbors,” says Peter.

In 38 reported cases of abuse, the suspicion was definitively refuted: it turned out that the injury was the result of an accident. The number of psychological abuse and sexual abuse has remained approximately the same over the past year.

All children’s hospitals in Switzerland have a child protection group that you can contact. That of the Zurich Children’s Hospital is only the best known. (aargauerzeitung.ch)