Does your pediatrician leave kids fully clothed?

[Anonymous]

At DD's 11 y/o checkup, the pediatrician didn't ask her to undress and performed the entire (cursory?) exam while DD wore a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. This surprised me - at our old pediatricians (out of state), they always had the kids undressed and gave everything at least a quick check. Is staying clothed normal, or is our ped just not meeting the standard of care? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

At 11, your daughter is too old to be examined naked. Way too old. She's pre-adolescent and may even be adolescent. Is this a troll post?

[Anonymous]

My four year old stays dressed. Clothing is only pushed aside or removed if necessary, and then the pedi asks permission. Kids deserve modesty and respect, too.

I think an 11 year old might be mortified if asked to get undressed.

[Anonymous]

Always dressed -- stethoscope goes up/down the shirt to listen to heart and lungs. This is for our 7 and 10 year-olds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At DD's 11 y/o checkup, the pediatrician didn't ask her to undress and performed the entire (cursory?) exam while DD wore a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. This surprised me - at our old pediatricians (out of state), they always had the kids undressed and gave everything at least a quick check. Is staying clothed normal, or is our ped just not meeting the standard of care? Thanks!

Whoa--your post sends up red flags for me. My child did not have a fully undressed examination after the age of one. I hoped you stayed in the room while your child was undressed. Seriously, google pediatricians and child porn. On the contrary--your current pediatrician is acting appropriately.

[Anonymous]

Once my children were over 1, they stayed dressed for the exam and sat in my lap for almost all of it. At some point the dr had the child lie down on the table or would check very quickly into the diaper area as she called it to check my son's testicles or to do a quick check of my daughter's rash if I reported a concern. But otherwise no, the kids didn't get an all over check of skin while undressed.

if you think about it, except for skin conditions, there's really no need to have a child be undressed, is there, during a well-child exam? And wouldn't you the parent be in a position to report a concern? Wouldn't an 11 year old be old enough to reporta concern about her own skin?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once my children were over 1, they stayed dressed for the exam and sat in my lap for almost all of it. At some point the dr had the child lie down on the table or would check very quickly into the diaper area as she called it to check my son's testicles or to do a quick check of my daughter's rash if I reported a concern. But otherwise no, the kids didn't get an all over check of skin while undressed.

if you think about it, except for skin conditions, there's really no need to have a child be undressed, is there, during a well-child exam? And wouldn't you the parent be in a position to report a concern? Wouldn't an 11 year old be old enough to reporta concern about her own skin?

I agree with all of the pps. OP, that seems very odd. We are heading to our kids 2 and 5yo well visits in a few hours and I'll report back whether or not the 2 yo was undressed. I know he has been undressed up until now, but I'm pretty certain our 5 yo was not undressed past the age of 2. Now, we do have a concern with our son to be undressed for the dr to check out, but I'll see if it's part of their normal procedure.

The only reason I can see for undressing a smaller child (up to 2) may be to look for signs of abuse, if suspected.

[Anonymous]

Our doctor sometimes has asked out son to take off his shirt to look at his skin, check his spine. But no, he usually is dressed.

[Anonymous]

I certainly remember disrobing as a child for checkups. If your pediatrician is older it might just be the way he or she has always done things. The move to keeping clothing on unless necessary probably came with greater sensitivity to children and might be a practice that has started in the last 20 years.

[Anonymous]

Ours has our 3 year old wear a child size gown .

[Anonymous]

As a medical practitioner we are trained to do all well-child visits with the child in a gown and usually underwear. There are things that should be checked without clothes....especially at age 11. Spine alignment is one, but also breast/external genital area for signs of normal growth and development. I think that pediatricians in this area might have moved away from that because of people like the ones who have posted here...super sensitive about child nudity, etc. As someone who has seen more naked people than I care to remember, trust me when I say it is far from the same experience as seeing someone naked outside of the medical setting.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to most of you, and especially to 10:30! I am OP and am surprised by the answers I got here. I've always been in the room for well-child checkups, and the kids have always worn gowns and underwear. They haven't been naked and posing for the staff! Even in this practice, my younger child wore a gown & underwear (with a different doctor), and the doctor checked his private parts.

The reason I ask is that I would have thought they would check the pubertal development, as you say, and also general overview of health and appearance that might not be as apparent under the tween burka. A question has arisen that would have been addressed at the checkup if the dr had been more thorough. Now we've got to decide whether to make a special appointment for that, and believe me, that will be way more traumatic for a pubertal girl than a question posed during a general checkup.

[Anonymous]

new poster and physician here: love the tween burka comment.
in my sub-specialty practice, i don't always undress the child completely (b/c the area i focus on is specific), but in cases of a questionable diagnosis, i ALWAYS have the child fully undress (sadly,you'd be surprised how many cases of child abuse are caught by physicians when a child is fully undressed when not necesarily required by the chief complaint), but i do expect that my pediatrician undresses both of my kids entirely, even if its more of a pulling off of top, then putting back on immediately instead of full-on nudity for the whole exam,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks to most of you, and especially to 10:30! I am OP and am surprised by the answers I got here. I've always been in the room for well-child checkups, and the kids have always worn gowns and underwear. They haven't been naked and posing for the staff! Even in this practice, my younger child wore a gown & underwear (with a different doctor), and the doctor checked his private parts.

The reason I ask is that I would have thought they would check the pubertal development, as you say, and also general overview of health and appearance that might not be as apparent under the tween burka. A question has arisen that would have been addressed at the checkup if the dr had been more thorough. Now we've got to decide whether to make a special appointment for that, and believe me, that will be way more traumatic for a pubertal girl than a question posed during a general checkup.

Welcome to DC, OP. Land of helicopter parenting and paranoia galore. I find it funny that so many of the PPs are alarmed by this. My kids get into a hospital gown for their physicals... and yes, I"m present why they're examined... and no, the ped doesn't have camera equipment in the room. Good god people. Yes, there are some bad peds out there, but the way you PPs reacted, you would've thought that pedophile peds were all over the place.

[Anonymous]

*while