Raising the Uterus

I'm going to go out of sequence with my Palawan story-telling to post something that happened yesterday...

I've recently started doing ultrasounds for patients on my own, after being trained by a wonderful Swiss doctor. I just do the very basics: check for all major body parts, take measurements to get approximate gestational age, determine placenta placement, how the baby is lying, how many babies are inside, etc... I don't check for organ defects or other tricky issues. I normally scan 4-5 women in the afternoons following a prenatal morning.

Mavis approached me yesterday morning while I was checking hemoglobin levels, if I thought I should scan young Jolly who had been to a hilot with inappropriate size for dates.

A hilot is your run-of-the-mill village healer. This can be a witch doctor, a traditional birth attendant, the wise lady, abortion inducer, etc... They often do more harm than good and this appeared to be the case with Jolly.

That afternoon I sat down with Jolly and her boyfriend to get the story. It turns out she is only 19, but miscarried in February at 3 months. When she got pregnant again, she was pressured by her family to go to the hilot to "raise her uterus." Huh? I asked her how she went about doing this and apparently the hilot uses deep pelvic pressure to "massage" the uterus up, basically jabbing her hands into the lower belly while applying upward pressure. Supposedly this painful process helps prevent a miscarriage.

This prompted a quick anatomy and physiology lesson to explain how things work down there, and the danger of deep manipulative pressure during pregnancy. I also explained that miscarriages at three months are common if there are major defects or problems with the developing fetus. Jolly was very receptive and eager to do whatever was best for her baby.

Then we got on with the ultrasound. Her baby was extremely active and sucking it's thumb. I have so much fun pointing out basic anatomical features of the baby and the wonder in the mama's eyes never gets old. Her little one looked healthy, but a bit big for her dates. My guess is that she got pregnant a month before she thought. This happens quite a bit as women mistake their last period for implantation bleeding which happens at about 4 weeks. (PS - this picture is from the web, but you get an idea of what it looks like...)

I'm going to scan Jolly again in 4 weeks to make sure her little one is growing appropriately and confirm her due date. Please pray for Jolly, her boyfriend, and this new little one growing in her tummy.