“We prefer not to go to the doctor,” says Shanti, who is not alone in prefering sterilization at home. The majority of women from the Kisan community of Jhapa district have undergone sterilization by a midwife. “I was sterilized at home by the midwife,” says Bhansari Kisan of Tirangi, Bahundangi-9. “Since then I have not conceived.”
The local sterilization procedure is indeed very strange. According to villagers, immediately after the child is born the midwife overturns the intestines by rubbing on the stomach, and this they claim prevents another pregnancy. The procedure can be performed post-natal but is easier if done right after birth, says Bhansari.
These women do not know what really causes the sterilization. Nonetheless, they have complete faith in their midwife. “In return for the sterilization, the midwife receives clothes, money and food as per her demand,” says Sukri Kisan of Mechinagar-5. “If she is not pleased, the process will reverse itself, but that has never happened.”
Doctors do not believe in this traditional procedure. “We refuse to believe their claim,” says maternity expert Dr Jay Kumar Thakur of Bhadrapur Hospital. A few of the educated women who have started going to the hospital for family planning are being discouraged by women who want to maintain the domestic sterilization tradition.
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