1 Washington, DC
To the Editor.
The article by Baucher et al1 is of interest to me because I have taken care of children in emergency departments where parents were not allowed. In my experience throughout the years the advisability of having a parent in the room when a procedure is being done depends entirely on the character of the parent and the relationship between the parent and the child. In my personal experience, I have had a 2 1/2-year-old child with a severe laceration of the forehead which I sewed up under local anesthesia without restraining the him because the mother, who had a superb rapport with the child, was present.