Child Anal Fixation or Arghhh, Ahoy there Matey!
by Liv | Published on July 14th, 2006, 5:17 pm | Life
So you send your 8 year old into scrub with his little pirate ship, a little Mr Bubbles, and a healthy rectum. A few days later your in the emergency room while you child is having the pirate ship mast removed from his bum. Here's a picture of the pirate ship:
The parents mentioned that the child had insisted on being alone in the bathroom while he was playing with his pirate ship. After the fall the father had noticed that a piece of the mast was missing.
The patient was prepared for emergency surgery. The wound track contained the missing piece of the mast
The object was removed and a diverting open loop colostomy was performed.
Impalement dates from the middle ages when it was used as a mean of executing criminals by introducing a long, thin sharp pole through the anus.
The self-introduction of foreign bodies into the rectum is however, not rare, although fortunately this seldom results in a perforation. The most striking report noted in the literature of self induced rectal perforation involved a 50-year-old man who inserted a live eel in his rectum to relieve constipation. Unfortunately the eel ate its way through the rectum.
In this case the patient was experimenting with his toy ship and after slipping in the bathtub it perforated the rectum. Literature on the development of children does mention sexual experimentation at this age.4
