MY SCAR MY CHOICE

MY SCAR MY CHOICE                  

     Childbirth moments are the toughest for any women and for the big boys who care to stand by their ladies in that room where mums swear by their mother’s names that they will never get back. How painful it is for mums in Pumwani where an agent of syndicate arrives as soon as the innocent baby’s cord is separated from the mother!

Caesarean Section popularly known as C-section has become the way to go for many of those who can swipe the card and would rather do with a bikini scar and run away from the pain and ‘agony’ of labour pains. Respect to all mothers and especially older generation who had up to eight children without the C-scar on them.

So, the big boys want their ‘gals’ to remain intact and suffer no pains and so they approve of them to get the scar in place of a less painful birth. A few cases warrant for the C-scar. However, most young woman are opting the C-way. It has become so trendy that normal childbirth appears to be the abnormal way. We choose the names, we choose the hospital, we choose the country of birth, the date and finally, we choose the ‘abnormal’ way in the place of the normal, even when we can do it in a normal way.

The Swahili proverb ‘Uchungu wa mwana aujuae mzazi’ (only one who has  borne a child knows how painful it is) made a lot of sense to me when I first left the delivery bed. I am not sure it would have impacted on me the same way it did if I went the C-way the first time, by choice.

Even with the advancement in technology and financial resources, it would be nice to bear the heat of motherhood and mother own child the normal way. The proverb (no pains no gains) makes a lot of sense and there is the joy in holding that little bundle of joy after going through labour for any woman. I feel that giving birth the natural way whenever possible is the way to go and not ‘my scar my choice’.

By Esther Mwangi.