Recently, an acquaintance mentioned that a gynaecologist had performed a C-section on her 25 year old sister-in-law. A 25 year old with a normal pregnancy and not much complications, being advised to have a C-section in itself is pretty shocking but we can't possibly be a judge of this as a doctor might know better. Granted. But where alarm bells sounded in my head was when she mentioned that the doctor had said it was due to her 'age'!!! 25 years? Is old according to this doctor? Now this advice is given to a family with a cultural & religious background that is already quite conservative. Imagine the repercussions......the elder members of this family will now start insisting that their daughters and daughters-in-law marry very young and have kids in their late teens to early twenties. This message will get shared, with doctor's stamp of approval, throughout their community. It was extremely irresponsible of the doctor to give such misinformation. C-sections are clearly very advantageous for doctors in terms of scheduling convenient appointments ahead of time and there are much less complications or surprises. Nevertheless it is a surgery and should only be performed when there is a medical reason to.
General knowledge, which only needed some reading up from trustable sources, would indeed give a much better picture to this woman and her family, but they chose to put all their faith in a doctor who said 25 years of age was late for a pregnancy and delivery! Let's not even get into the topic of vested interests of hospitals and insurance companies.
In this day and age of social media, spread of misinformation has reached new alarming heights. Easily affected are the vulnerable, like kids or the elderly, and anyone else who blindly trusts something or someone without enough research. Too many pseudo-experts and vested interest parties exists in social media, so never fully believe everything you read, see or hear. Extensive research is required before believing, or adapting anything. Social media is now an extremely useful tool to spread mass hysteria, violence, hate and conflict. So beware, be aware and look to more authentic sources of information.
© Sunitha Shyam 2021
#misinformation #righttoinformation #info #information #socialmedia #truth #hysteria #conflict #hate #doctors #culture #religion #conservative #community #society
