The Great Escape

I was going through old snaps from my previous stint as NJH and found this great story. 

It was a Sunday afternoon, when we had a young lady come in with a very peculiar complaint. I appreciated that she was quite forthright. The family had decided that she would abort her baby. It was her second pregnancy and her first baby was a girl.

She was already into her third trimester. 

Her in-laws had taken her to a quack. The poor guy did what he knew best. And he did not know his anatomy. 

He pushed in a laminaria tent into the urethra instead of into the uterus. And the laminaria tent had gone through the urethra into the bladder. The peculiar design of the laminaria tent ensured that it got stuck. 

We were in a peculiar position. 

The baby was about 28 weeks old. And there was a laminaria tent inside her bladder with the thread sticking out. 

Our surgeon thought it best to do a cystotomy (opening the bladder through a small operation in the abdomen) and remove the laminaria tent. 

And that's what we did. 

The lady came back and delivered about about couple of months. I was away on leave. But everybody remembered her. 

And of course, the baby was a beautiful girl . . . a very very lucky girl. 

My Introduction to Female Feticide

The snaps contained in this post are quite hideous, repulsive, very sickening . . . very unpleasant . . . all synonyms one can think about something very nasty and distasteful. Please view with discretion and ensure children are not around when you view this post. 

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The following incident was my first exposure to the ghastly practice of female feticide in the country.

This happened in 2003 while I was in NJH as a junior doctor. I had lost all these snaps till I found them in a old CD which was kept in our office. 

I took some time deciding whether I should post this here. 

It was towards winter of 2003 when a lady was brought in by her family in vague complaints of bleeding from the vagina. She was in shock and sepsis. We did an ultrasound which showed a contracted uterus with some retained products inside. The relatives agreed that she had an abortion. They said she was 3 months pregnant. 

One of our senior consultants took her in for a curratage of the uterus. In the theatre, he discovered that the uterus was perforated after the sound he put into the uterus went all the way in.

He took a decision to operate her. 

And this was what we found inside the peritoneal cavity. 

 

A macerated dead GIRL baby of approximately 28 weeks gestation

And this is the posterior wall of her uterus. 

The photographs say it all. An attempted septic abortion where the abortionist had perforated the posterior wall of the uterus and baby slipped into the peritoneal cavity. 

Such incidents continue to happen. Couple of weeks back, one of my local acquaintance confided that there was a maternal death in our nearby village about 6 months back after the lady tried to abort more than half way through her pregnancy. 

Please excuse if this post has hurt you. But, this is reality. 

The Unborn Girl . . . Murdered

(User discretion advised due to snap of macerated baby)

KB, a 40 year old came to us at around Saturday midnight with a history of term pregnancy, labour pains and loss of fetal movements since one day. Since, Titus, who was on duty, did not get a fetal heart sound, he did an ultrasound which showed a dead baby in a transverse lie. 

He did per vaginal examination was surprised to find a 70 cm long rubber tube coiled inside the uterus. 

There was no fetal pole palpable through the vaginal orifice and there was a foul smell. 

He called me telling about the rubber tube. I felt that something was amiss. 

Considering that KB was in labour for more than 1 day, I did not think it as wise to try a internal podalic version which we regularly do. One of our doctors, Dr Shishir is quite an expert in doing it.  

I posted her for a Cesarian section. 

I was surprised to find out that the uterus looked very much preterm. It looked quite unhealthy too. I was glad that I did not go for the IPV. 

As soon as the uterus was opened, stench of decomposed flesh filled the room. The baby was badly macerated and was at least 3 days dead. The baby was female. . . 

The dead baby and the orange colored rubber tube which we found inside the uterus. . . 

It was not complicated to piece the events together. Someone had helped the family diagnose a female baby. And they had tried to abort it. 

Considering the patient's age, I asked if we could do a tubectomy on her. The family was outright against the suggestion . . . The husband told me that they needed to have a boy. . . 

I wonder if she had been aborting like this for sometime since the delivery of her previous 3 daughters the youngest of whom was about 15 years old. . . 

I informed the civil surgeon's office and the police. 

The civil surgeon had informed the press and they were all over the place by Sunday afternoon. 

It is sad. Girl babies are not wanted . . . And they are killed ruthlessly. But, it is not only girl babies who are killed. Kindly read a very good article against abortions of any type.  . . 

The occasions when we've witnessed clear instances of prejudices against the girl child are umpteen. . . And I'm sure that the cold blooded murder which came to light is only the tip of the iceberg . . .