Dr. OCB

If you get angry when a doctor refuses to prescribe the heavy drugs you demanded, you didn't come to get treated - you came to be validated. A good doctor protects you from yourself.

"Our grandmothers gave birth at home without doctors and turned out completely fine." This one of the most dangerous lies in public health. It relies on a lethal flaw in human logic known as survivorship bias. Here is why romanticizing ancestral home birth costs lives today: 🧵

LET'S LOOK BACK IN TIME ... Caesarean sections (C-sections) were resisted by European medicine in the 19th Century because of the 100% risk of maternal deaths, even with obstructed labour because surgeons didn't stitch the uterus after delivering the baby. That made mothers to bleed to death (Hemorrhage) and get very bad infections in the pelvis and abdomen (Peritonitis). But somewhere in East Africa, something else was happening. In 1879, the Scottish medical anthropologist Roberk Feklin witnessed an advanced C-section being done in Bunyoro Kingdom. The indigenous healers routinely performed successful C-sections. They used banana wine for both anaesthesia (pain blocker) and antisepsis (germ killer); they cauterized bleeding vessels and meticulously stitched the wounds. That means they addressed what drove the 100% fatality of mothers in Europe then: severe hemorrhage & peritonitis.

Before the country gets concerned, let's compare now and 10 years back. IN 2016 ... Uganda's national Caesarean section (C-section) rate was 6.0%; Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) was 336 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births; and Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) was 27 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births. IN 2026 ... As per recent data from UDHS and @MinofHealthUG, the national C-section rate is 10.7% to 11.9% (nearly double); MMR is 188 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births (44% decline); and NMR is 22 newborn deaths per 1,000 live births (19% decline). Regional and National Referral Hospitals average 20% to 35% C-section rates because of the high emergency referral burdens from the lower facilities. Then we have to consider the following: 1. Increased access to elective and emergency C-section services in 2026 than before. 2. Uganda's population has grown, so has the population of women of reproductive age and deliveries. 3. Et Cetera.