Critics

A woman came to visit the family a few weeks ago. She was telling us how she prayed and call her pastors to join her in prayer. Her daughter-in-law was in labor and the doctor had suggested a cesarean operation but she refused. Hence, the long prayers session for her to give birth vaginally.

This got me thinking what is wrong with using cesarean operation. Why do some Africans especially Nigerians look down on the cesarean operation?

A woman that has brought a baby to this world deserves some accolades. Either vaginally or through cesarean operation is simply amazing. Even on social media or churches, I noticed the way women give testimonies for being able to give birth vaginally while their peers in the hospital gave birth through cesarean operation. Sounds like women that
gave birth through cesarean operations did something wrong.

This ideology should not be encouraged. Motherhood is a journey of no retirement and one method of childbirth should not be given preference over the other.
The most important thing should be the safety of the mother and the newborn baby. Their health should be paramount and shown love and care not attaching importance to the method of giving birth.

The woman explained further that though her daughter-in-law gave birth vaginally she was weak for days and she was scared about her fragile health. Even, the baby was weak too. I wanted to tell her that the cesarean operation will have saved her this whole torturing process but because she is older and is used to old methods she may not see reasons with my view.

A colleague told me that at a family discussion a man and his son saw women who gave birth through cesarean operation were lazy. After all, our mothers gave birth vaginally and even had more kids. She said she was so surprised she couldn't say much. There are still a lot of things we need to unlearn and relearn in our society.

Even in terms of the sex of the baby, you see the pressure on the woman to give birth to a particular sex of the baby as if one baby gender is better than the other. Meanwhile, it’s even the men that determine the sex of the baby.

There are a lot of challenges women and couples face. They need to keep fighting to uphold their decisions and be let to live their lives. Certain ideologies need to be dealt away with. I believe we will get there, one step at a time.

Thanks for reading.