By Jayne O’Donnel and Mabinty Quarshie USA TODAY
SAVANNAH, Ga. – Latrelle Huff says her twins were conceived by rape.
Now she blames domestic violence for her children’s health problems.
The Georgia woman says she had been in an abusive, on-and-off relationship for six years when she became pregnant. While pregnant, she says, the conflict continued. Huff spent 25 of 37 weeks on bed rest, she says, due in part to rectal bleeding her doctors said was caused by stress.
Two days after the twins were born in 2014, Huff says, the father took a swing at her. He was holding their newborn son. They were still in the hospital. Huff had just delivered by Cesarean section. “He was so angry at me because my milk wouldn’t come in,” Huff, 39, told USA TODAY.
The boy was born with “floppy baby syndrome,” a muscular condition doctors said might be attributed to abuse during pregnancy. Both children struggle with health issues, including speech disorders, and have spent months in instructional therapy to learn how to follow directions.
Share This Post!
Should Childhood Trauma Be Treated As A Public Health Crisis?
By Erin Blakemore, NPR When public health officials get wind of an outbreak of Hepatitis A or influenza, they spring into action with public awareness campaigns, monitoring and outreach. But should they [...]
The Healing Power of Dance Movement Therapy
By Helaina Hovitz As I worked more furiously towards the deadline of finishing the edits on my memoir about growing up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder while verbally telling my story over [...]
How to Rewire Your Traumatized Brain
By the Concepción de León I hear some people have trouble with therapy, that it can take years for them to open up to their doctors, let alone cry or break down. Not [...]
Developmental Trauma Disorder: The Effects of Child Abuse and Neglect
By Maureen V. Kilrain, MS, PA-C Child neglect and abuse are perhaps the most significant community health challenge in the United States. Mental health experts in trauma continue to investigate and apply a [...]
Why Don’t Child Sex Abuse Victims Tell?
By David M. Allen, M.D. One of the things that child abuse deniers like the False Memory Syndrome Foundation focus on, besides child abuse apologist Elizabeth Loftus's irrelevant arguments about the unreliability of [...]
Post-Traumatic Childhood
By Bessel A. van der Kolk Brookline, Mass. - As a young psychiatrist, I worked with Vietnam War combat veterans and confronted the astonishing lack of resources to help these men and women [...]