Health expert shares possible reasons Elizabeth Smart didn’t have a child in captivity

One of the biggest questions people have after watching Netflix’s new documentary Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart is: Did she have a child in captivity? The answer is no, and an expert has shared some of the possible reasons.

During her abductor Brian Mitchell’s 2010 trial, Dr. Paul Whitehead, a witness from the forensic unit at Utah State Hospital, was discussing Brian Mitchell’s delusions, and revealed he wanted to have a child with Smart.

“Mitchell was talking to Miss Smart about having babies to the point that Smart actually picked out a name if that happened,” he claimed, as reported by ABC News.

The teenager was abducted at just 14 years old and suffered nine months of devastating sexual abuse. However, she didn’t have a child while in captivity, and there could be many reasons for this.

Psychiatrist and Behavioral Health Spokesperson Dr. Maya Reynolds, from Choice Point Health, told The Tab that the extreme stress and trauma she went through could have had an impact.

Credit: Netflix

“From a physiological perspective, chronic stress stimulates the body’s stress-response system, which can make a mess with the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. In some females, it can cause menstrual irregularities, significant changes in ovulation and missed periods. Moreover, trauma also affect’s a person sleep, appetite and overall health, which also cause hormonal imbalance,” she explained.

“There could be more contributing factors too that could indicate why a female did not get pregnant during captivity. These include contraceptive use by the male, infertility issues that’s not related to stress, timing, pregnancy loss, malnutrition, illness or the frequency of ovulation.”

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Licensed Marriage And Family Therapist Sara Sloan, from Austin Concierge Therapy, added that the captor also could have had his own “infertility issues”.

“The reality is that unfortunately women do not have a mechanism in their body to prevent rape from turning into a pregnancy. My best guess is that her captor had his own infertility issues, as opposed the idea that her body prevented it,” she explained.

Smart is now happily married and has three children with her husband Matthew Gilmour: Chloe, James and Olivia. They live in Utah.

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Featured image by: Netflix