14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, doctors announced that, looking to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, a woman in the town of Honda in Colombia inserted a potato in her body and kept it there for several days in a row, during which time the spud grew roots.
Admittedly, this is the kind of news that the majority of people cannot help but laugh about. Using a potato as a contraceptive is pretty stupid, and we humans really do have a knack for poking fun at all things stupid.
Still, the fact of the matter is that there is more to this news than meets the eye. What I mean is that, at the end of the day, this story is less about how one woman was dumb enough to think that a spud would keep her from getting pregnant and more about why we need reproductive health education.
First off, here's a plot synopsis
As mentioned, this downright bizarre incident occurred in the town of Honda in Colombia. It is understood that the woman inserted the potato in her body only because her mother told her that this would keep her from getting pregnant.
The doctors who saw this case through say that the 22-year-old woman kept the spud in her body for about two weeks. Apparently, the potato liked its new home so much that it got really comfy. Long story short, it germinated and grew roots.
It was only after she started experiencing severe abdominal pains that the woman sought medical help. Luckily, doctors managed to remove the potato without having to operate on the 22-year-old. The woman did not suffer any serious injuries, and is expected to soon make a full recovery.
What does this news tell us about the world we live in?
I don't know about you, but I for one have to admit that I find it quite ironic that the news about how this 22-year-old used a potato as a contraceptive made headlines the same week doctors announced that a womb transplant patient in Sweden had delivered a perfectly healthy baby boy.
Please allow me to break it down for you: in one country, a woman carrying the womb of a 61-year-old gives birth to a healthy child. Meanwhile, a 22-year-old living at the other end of the world is hospitalized after inserting a potato in her body to keep her from getting pregnant.
These two medical cases both happened in the 21st century. Still, if we're being honest, we have to admit that the news about the spud contraceptive sounds more like something we would expect to read in records dating back to the Middle Ages.
What this means is that, unfortunately, there are still regions in this world where people are as informed about reproductive health as Lady Gaga is about what constitutes an outfit. Mind you, this problem is something we should be concerned about.
The importance of reproductive health education
From where I stand, it most definitely isn’t OK that, while some countries are reporting one medical breakthrough after another (I keep tabs on health news and I have to tell you that scientists in some countries are some seriously busy bees), people in other regions are utterly clueless about how the human body works.
Experiencing physical attraction towards other people and being intimate with those that we are attracted to are an integral part of being human. Hence, countries should be as interested in educating people about reproductive health as they are in making sure that folks go see a doctor if they feel that something is wrong with their liver, their heart, their kidneys and whatnot.
Heck, people shouldn’t even wait to start experiencing symptoms (like having potato roots suddenly stick out of their body) to visit a clinic. They need to be made aware of the fact that having their reproductive system checked on a regular basis is just as important as having doctors look at their other major organs.
Reproductive health is important to prevent unwanted pregnancies and keep the world’s population in check, but it’s also important because these unwanted pregnancies should be prevented in a responsible, healthy way and not using all sorts of home remedies and tricks that put people’s lives at risk.
Then again, educating people about what constitutes a healthy love life is also important to make sure that couples who do want to have kids are fit enough to produce healthy offspring. Otherwise put, mothers need to know how to enjoy their love life without endangering their ability to have kids, should they ever decide that they want to.
Lastly, there’s the issue of STDs. They’re a huge threat to public health, and while it is true that doctors can treat most of them, it would be a whole lot better if folks didn’t get them in the first place. Admittedly, accidents do happen, but investing in reproductive health education is making sure that they stay accidents and do not become the norm.
To sum up, the point that I’m trying to make is that, as funny as the story about how a woman used a potato as a contraceptive might seem to some people, this piece of news is actually quite disturbing simply because it’s a reminder that, recent breakthroughs in medicine aside, there are folks in this world to know zilch about how their own body works.