By Ang Lai Lai
In every conceivable manner, the family is the link to our past, the bridge to our future.
—-Alex Hailey
Young Passion
I saw the seventeen-year-old girl with her polytechnic student boyfriend. She was a sweet-looking girl, not the defiant rebellious type we associate with promiscuous behavior. It was her first visit to my clinic and she wanted a pregnancy test. Actually, the test was unnecessary, as she was already twenty-four weeks pregnant.
She came from a broken home. Her mother was the second wife and she had been cared for in a Girls’ Home due to inadequate home supervision. My nurse took it upon herself to house her and to care for her till she delivered. The couple then brought the baby home, got married and soon had a second child.
But all did not end well. The marriage ended in divorce a few years later.
Teen Pregnancy
A pregnancy that is unplanned or unwanted can result in many psychosocial issues, and all the more so when the pregnant woman is a teenager.
The vignette describes a case seen by the author in a private clinic. The young couple decided to get married, and in fact went on to have another child. The clinic nurse who went out of her way to support the patient during her pregnancy deserves commendation. Unfortunately, the marriage failed, and the patient found herself alone and supporting two young children.
On reflection, was marriage the better decision, or could she have considered giving up the child for adoption?
Dr Ang Lai Lai practices in a polyclinic and is part of the clinical faculty for undergraduate and postgraduate Family Medicine training with NUS. She is also accredited as a medical mediator.
The commentary and vignette were reproduced with permission from the book “Being Human, Stories from Family Medicine” edited by Cheong Pak Yean and Ong Chooi Peng and published in 2021 by the College of Family Physicians Singapore.
Pictures of illness experiences were drawn by NUS medical students in workshops conducted from 2012-2017 by A/Prof Cheong Pak Yean. Senior family physicians subsequently shared vignettes and commentaries based on the pictures.
