Doctor At Your Cervix! (Lighter Side of O&G)

DOCTOR AT YOUR CERVIX (THE LIGHTER SIDE OF O & G) 

After nearly 40 years working in the field of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, I had my fair share of interesting moments with women and their bodies. Not the close encounters of the sexual kind! 

Workplace, not playground 
A gynaecologist has to learn how to switch off his sex centre in the brain when in the clinic. After all, the most potent organ in the male body is the BRAIN, a mere thought can raise an erect organ! Many lay people would regard gynecologists as very privileged to be able to handle the female sexual organs, even to point of envy. We are the only profession to have the pleasure to receive smiles from beautiful women when we meet them on the street. The retort however is “your profession or hers!” However, please remember that other men’s playgrounds are our workplaces. The initial gynecological examinations of women in India, where I did my medical studies, and in the rural areas were not very pleasant. The standard of perineal hygiene was deplorable. After all, the reproductive canal is between the sewage and the waterworks! 

Umbilicus & Wind 
In private practice, the situation is much more pleasant. Many women would sprinkle talcum powder and even some perfume! There is one part of the body where some women have neglected to clean, that is the umbilicus. A young woman may be so well-dressed and clean, yet there is a one centimetre of solidified dirt in the umbilicus. It was never cleaned for fear of wind entering the abdomen! I reassured them, if that was so, they better not go swimming! Fortunately, most of them did not protest when I helped to clean their umbilicus, at no extra charge! 

At Your Cervix 
The most appropriate greeting made by the gynecologist to his patient would be “I am at your cervix”, to which the patient would reply “I am dilated to meet you”. There is a story of a Singapore professor who would just look from below the drapes and greet their patients by their names, without looking at their faces! 

Foreign Bodies 
On a few occasions, I had to remove foreign objects from the vagina, including remains of broken condom, sex aids like ring of hair, small toys and marbles. On one occasion I had to gently remove the top broken off a glass bottle! She was not one of the Thai performers who could perform vaginal gymnastics with balloons, blowing trumpets, or even keeping a gold fish alive for three minutes. 

Menses & Sex
Can a woman have sex during her menses? Besides the fear of infection and injury, there is a fear of the husband getting “poison” from the menstrual blood. It is thought that during the male orgasm, the menstrual blood would be sucked into the male organ! I would ask them to experiment by masturbating in a glass of water to see whether the water would be aspirated! 

Virgin Birth  
Very often, there is denial of sexual activity. One day, a mother brought her daughter to the A & E with severe abdominal pain. She was on the verge of delivering a baby. Yet the mother was not aware that her daughter was even pregnant, and still insisted that her daughter had no boyfriend. I just told her that the only time a virgin gave birth was on Christmas Day 2000 years ago! The best method of avoiding pregnancy is to put the pill, between the thighs! 

Where do babies come from? 
These days, people are no longer ignorant of where babies come from. Even children can be told that babies are not brought in by the stork or picked from shopping in the hospital. In an episode of “The Cosby Show”, a little girl was smart enough to ask how the stork knew which baby to drop on which basket in the hospital! There is still hesitation to talk to children how babies are born. There is even belief that babies are born very small and expand on exposing to the air. On the other hand there is little logic to deliver babies in the water tub. After all women deliver human babies not baby dolphins! 

Pain Dear? 
 However, when your wife is groaning in pain, do not ask “dear, is it painful ah?” One woman screamed at the husband, “You had your minutes of fun, now I have to go through hours of pain!” By the way, noises made by the woman in labour are not much different from the sounds she may make at the height of sexual orgasm! Women make similar sounds in pain and in ecstasy! Mothers’ day was celebrated long before Fathers’ Day. After all, to be a father is just 9 minutes of work. To be a mother is 9 months of heavy- laden pregnancy, 9 hours of labour pain, 9 months of breastfeeding and 9 years of nurturing the child. 

Sex after Delivery
Many patients do not ask their doctors when then could resume sex after delivery. Malays wait for 6 weeks while Chinese are suppose to abstain for 100 days! I would tell them that their husbands are not “woh seong” (monks)! There was a joke by a sex medicine specialist at a seminar that the husband, if he is a gentleman, should wait until the placenta is delivered! Medically speaking, three to four weeks is sufficient for abstinence.