Thread by @__DrShow

How religious homes have increased maternal and newborn mortality.
Thread

About 2 months ago a friend of mine brought a woman in obvious labour to my facility around 2am.she was bleeding profusely. I checked her abdomen and saw the scar of her previous C-section. The belly had an abnormal shape so I knew her womb had ruptured.

Fast forward 3hrs of surgery,6 pints of blood and 10hrs of sleep, she woke up and we started talking.i told her how we had to open her up,pull out the dead baby from inbetween her intestines, spent hours salvaging her womb,blah,blah,blah.she burst into tears

To cut the long story short, this is her 3rd C-section.she lost the babies from the previous ones. She was told by her pastor and church midwife that her problem wasn't medical but spiritual arrows from enemies .so she has to come in for prayers to deliver like the Hebrew women.

The annoying thing is that the woman in question has an android(male type) pelvis. An Android pelvis is not favourable for vaginal delivery.

Religious homes especially churches have ventured into childbirth for obvious reasons using the "deliver like Hebrew women " line as their slogan to deceive people while their own loved ones use proper hospitals.

Whoever took time to cross check will see that the whole "Hebrew women delivery" thing was a lie told by Hebrew midwives to Pharaoh because they didn't want part of his male baby murdering plan.

I have interacted with a lot of these midwives known as 'iyA agbebi'in Yoruba and here are my findings..
1.they mostly lack basic education.they don't know basic English so they can't interprete simple test results like scan etc. They use oil and prayers for antenatal

2.they lack knowledge of childbirth itself.they don't know what danger signs to look out for. They don't even see it even if it is staring at them in the face. All they do is rub annoiting oil on her head and pray the baby comes out safely.

One of them even brought a baby to me one day because she noticed the baby wasn't breathing normally but the problem is that the placenta was still attached to the baby and the umbilical cord wasn't clamped.the boy died because all his blood flowed back into the placenta.

A distant cousin of mine even died in their maternity, she had twin pregnancy and high BP, convulsed severally and all they did was cast out evil spirits and pour holy water and annoiting oil on her head

Some of them put methylated spirit in cotton wool and shove it up a newborns nose to make it "cry properly".

3.they practice their trade or whatever it is they do like typical artisans; No sympathy or empathy. It's all about money to them. The ones in Lagos even pay the government to get certification from them after like 8weeks of 'training'.they use several tricks to make sure you

Don't deliver your baby elsewhere. Their excuse is they they suffered for and with you all through your antenatal and it's only fair they get the delivery fees. Here are some of their tricks....

a. A woman with a pregnancy of about 34-35weeks who is close to delivery walks into their clinic,they tell her to do 'igbele'(live in church premises until delivery). To prevent her and her baby from being harmed by evil spirits present everywhere but their church.

b. If she doesnt buy the igbele BS and still wants to go home despite all the cajoling, they tell her to lie down for examination and insert 1-2tablets of misoprostol(cytotec) in her vagina to induce labour. Without her knowledge o.

c. They ask her if she has body pains to which every heavily pregnant woman will say yes. So they tell her they want to give her a shot of fast acting painkiller injection but give her a shot of oxytocin instead hence inducing labour.

3.if she somehow lands as an emergency in a proper hospital without their knowledge and the doctor says a C-section is the way to go and she mistakenly calls them to assist her with prayers,the midwife/pastor will tell her not to do it else she will die because

Her problem is not medical but spiritual. They assure her that if she comes to church for prayers,she will deliver with ease like the Hebrew women.
They funny thing is the deliveries are not for free.

People patronise these quacks because of lack of affordable and accessible health care. The only way to put these people out of business is for government to fund health and get the health insurance system firing on all cylinders.

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