Mom convicted after belly ring nearly kills teen

**Sojiita** · October 17th, 2006, 11:56 PM

Mom convicted after belly ring nearly kills teen
Mass infection from bellybutton piercing was left untreated

Updated: 5:46 p.m. ET Oct 17, 2006
BOSTON - A mother whose teenage daughter nearly died from an infection caused by a bellybutton piercing was convicted Tuesday of endangering the girl’s life by failing to seek medical attention until she was gravely ill.

Deborah Robinson, 39, could get up to five years in prison.

The girl developed an infection after piercing her own navel and inserting a ring.

Prosecutors said Robinson watched for several weeks as her 13-year-old daughter dropped from 115 pounds to 75 pounds, became incontinent and grew so weak that she could not get off the couch.

When paramedics arrived at the family’s apartment in 2005, the girl was emaciated and was wearing an adult diaper.

A jury convicted Robinson of wantonly and recklessly permitting substantial bodily injury to a child. She is scheduled for sentencing Oct. 26.

The girl suffered extensive organ damage from an infection that ravaged her body. For nearly a week, doctors were unsure whether she would survive. But after a series of operations and weeks of rehabilitation, she made a full recovery.

“This story is a story of poverty, of ignorance, of a single mother with two children trying to do the best that she could do with very little resources,” Robinson’s lawyer, Janet Macnab, told the jury.

The girl, now 14, testified in her mother’s defense. She said her mother urged her to eat, gave her orange juice and adjusted the temperature in the apartment to make her comfortable. She also contradicted prosecutors in saying she was in no pain
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15307775/from/RS.2/
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Not sure what to think of this..I do think the girl lied to help her mom when she said she was in no pain..how would that be possible??

KD · October 18th, 2006, 12:38 AM

Her child dropped 40 lbs and she did not take her to the doc? WTF?? 115 to 75 is DRAMATIC! And she almost died!

Sterilization is the key, in piercings and sometimes in people.

**southernbelle** · October 18th, 2006, 08:34 AM

I wonder if this was a situation where the mom explicity told the daughter that she was not permitted to have a belly button ring, so the daughter did it herself in an act of defiance, and the mom was letting her suffer as punishment. When I was in high school and this was the craze among all my friends, my mom and some of my friends' moms forbid us to do it (which I'm grateful for now!). I knew several girls who did it themselves with a safety pin or sewing needle and did get infections. It's very risky, and even if you have it done professionally, there is still a high likelihood of infection. All of my friends were severely reprimanded, but their parents did get them the proper medical care. (Several of the girls' mothers made the girls get jobs or do chores around the house to come up for the money to pay for it since they were the ones who broke the rules and did it behind their parents' backs). This mother still should have taken her to see a doctor, but that scenario would make more sense to me than the mother just not caring at all. I could see her being like, "You made the decision after I told you that you didn't have permission, so you can deal with the consequences." They both sound stupid. The girl should have known better than to do this herself and the mom should have done something about it.

**Laurent** · October 18th, 2006, 08:45 AM

Originally Posted by southernbelle

I wonder if this was a situation where the mom explicity told the daughter that she was not permitted to have a belly button ring, so the daughter did it herself in an act of defiance, and the mom was letting her suffer as punishment.

That's what I thought, too. Forty pounds is A LOT to lose over just a few weeks and wearing an adult diaper is a big clue something isn't right.

**travelbug** · October 18th, 2006, 09:28 AM

Oh, great. This is another case of stupidity and lack of public resources for health care.

It's as simple as the mom couldn't afford to take her daughter to the hospital so she just kept hoping it would get better on its own. So instead of a simple $1000 hospital bill write-off, it turns into a $50,000 write-off, all at taxpayer expense.

Didn't this woman know that hospitals can't refuse to treat based on lack of ability to pay?

**silver024** · October 18th, 2006, 09:51 AM

^^you would be amazed at what people do not know when they go to a hospital, or choose not to know i should say..i work for a radiology billing company..so when a patient goes into the hospital for any kind of radiology procedure..they get a bill from the hospital and a bill from us for our drs reading the report on the procedure. So we get phone calls from patients flipping out about a bill they didnt know they were going to get. There is a sign right smack on the front of the front desk in radiology that states..You will get a bill for the reading of your procedure along with the facility bill. I know at our hospital in every single registration area there is a sign saying they can not refuse you treatment.

If its a life and death situation for your daughter..who cares about the bills totaling up...a lot of companies will help you out if you make a simple phone call and explain your situation

**sweetrebel** · October 18th, 2006, 11:41 AM

If it is a medical emergency they can not refuse to see you...which this obviously was...

This reminds me of when I was in the 8th grade. My best friend and I got the stupid idea to burn our boyfriends name into the top of our hands with a pencil eraser. (yes, stupid idea-but we hey we were exactly that-stupid. yound and stupid

) My mother freaked out and I got my ass whipped for it, but my bf's parents were way weird and strict. They would bind her hand with tape and after a few days RIP IT OFF!! They did this as a form of punishment...so she would learn her lesson.

**twitchy** · October 18th, 2006, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by sweetrebel

.They would bind her hand with tape and after a few days RIP IT OFF!! They did this as a form of punishment...so she would learn her lesson.

The lesson being that her parents were sadistic freaks?

**sweetrebel** · October 18th, 2006, 12:50 PM

They were some strange folks alright. In their mind I guess making her hurt would make her not want to something like that again...the only thing that always puzzled me was they were freaking because she had done this permanent thing to her body yet the scars that they created were ok...