Genital Warts May Not Always Signal Child Abuse

New findings run counter to standard pediatric training

MONDAY, Oct. 3, 2005 (HealthDay News) -- Pediatricians who encounter genital or anal warts on children have been trained to consider these as a clear sign of child abuse, and to alert social services.

However, a new study suggests the presence of these infections may not, on their own, always signal abuse.

"We have seen over the past few years an increase in the number of human papillomavirus (HPV) cases in adults and children," pediatrician and child abuse expert Dr. Sara Sinal, of the Brenner Children's Hospital at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., said in a prepared statement.

"However, we were seeing younger children with this virus and many times had no other signs that abuse was taking place," she added. "These children seemed different in many ways from the children we were seeing for suspected sexual abuse who did not have warts."

The study appears in the October issue of Pediatrics.

Sinal and her colleagues also found that children often would be taken to a doctor for treatment of mouth or throat warts, but the doctors treating these children never suspected or reported child abuse.

"This is the same virus in a different location in the body, and child abuse was never considered. It made us look at these anal and genital warts so we could determine whether a child could contract the diseases from a nonsexual contact. We did not want to call social services to report a child if there was no suspicion of abuse. Having been involved in many child abuse reports, I know how traumatic a report can be for a family," Sinal said.

"We are not ruling out child abuse as a possible cause for the infection in children under the age of 4. Every child with warts needs a thorough evaluation for possible abuse. However, when there are no other signs a child is being abused, we no longer feel it is necessary to report the family to the department of social services for suspected abuse. We are encouraging our colleagues to keep an open mind when they discover HPV in a child," Sinal said.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease in North America. It can also be spread from mother to child in the birth canal and it's possible that warts can be transmitted by contact with a hand or contaminated object. HPV can lay dormant for months or even years before warts appear.

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics has more about child sexual abuse.

Related Stories

No stories found.
logo
www.healthday.com