9 Months Abstinence

It is our responsibility to raise awareness and educate people at every opportunity at our disposal. It makes the world a better place. Ignorance is indeed a terrible malady that makes individuals suffer needlessly.

This next encounter on My Patients' Files is a perfect depiction of this fact and it was an issue I took personal.

She is a first-time mom who delivered via a caesarian section. Her diagnosis was a urinary tract infection and possibly vaginal candidiasis. But she was more worried about her menses, its now 9 months since delivery and she's yet to see it.

I explained to her its due to breastfeeding. Can I get pregnant without seeing it? she asked...I replied that its not impossible but under normal circumstances, she should not.

She explained that she did not want to get pregnant because of the caesarian section she had, and that is why she has taken the extra precaution of not allowing her husband to come near her in the last nine months!

I could not hide my shock! Nine months of no sex for you and your husband? Are you kidding me?

Did he offend you? She said no. Haven't you ever heard of family planning? pills, injectables, IUCD? She answered no. Ok ok, what about Condom...Gold Circle?

Either her husband is equally as ignorant or he has simply and secretly been helping himself outside the home in the last nine months.

You have your say.

I asked her: do you really think your husband has been abstinent in the past nine months? Her answer: Please where is the family-planning clinic?