“I don’t think health care practitioners should be critical or judgmental,” Dr. Breuner said. The legal rules on minors getting tattoos and body piercings vary from state to state; some states prohibit it outright, others allow it with parental consent, and still others require parental presence. “I wanted to make sure it was clean and sterile, and it was,” Dr. Breuner said. It’s also important to keep up the vigilance; body piercings can take much longer to heal than many teenagers realize — the eyebrow, for example, takes six to eight weeks, but the navel can take up to nine months. Many body piercings have other implications for health, from the tooth chipping associated with tongue piercings (not to mention the risk of a piece of jewelry getting into the airway) to the problems with later breast-feeding that can follow nipple piercings.

Source: New York Times September 18, 2017 03:56 UTC