COLOMBIA NEWS — A Colombian woman complaining of abdominal pains shocked doctors when the cause of her ailment was revealed – she’d used a potato as a form of contraception.
The problems started after the vegetable sprouted roots that had started to grow inside the 22-year-old’s reproductive organs.
The embarrassed young woman explained that she had been advised by her mother to insert a potato into her vagina as a means of avoiding unwanted pregnancy.
The unnamed woman told medics: ‘My mom told me that if I didn’t want to get pregnant, I should put a potato up there. I believed her.’
After leaving the potato in place for around 2 weeks she began to experience intense pain in her lower abdomen. The potato had germinated, and grown roots inside the lady’s private parts.
When the nurse went to examine the patient, she originally thought she had been the target of a practical joke, as she found roots emerging from the young woman´s vagina.
Luckily for the young woman, she will not suffer any lasting effects and the spud’s removal did not require any surgery.
Carolina Rojas, the attending nurse, pointed the finger of blame at the woman´s mother for giving her daughter such bad advice in terms of contraception methods available.
A recent campaign by Colombia’s Family Welfare Institute aimed at reducing the high levels of teenage pregnancy in Colombia stated that young people’s general rejection of conventional contraception methods, such as condoms and contraceptive pills, coupled with a macho society which often saw girls pressured into having unsafe sex, contributed to a high level of unwanted teenage pregnancies.
This highlights the serious issue concerning the youth of Colombia, who are rejecting conventional contraceptive methods such as condoms which has lead to unwanted teen pregnancies and widespread unsafe sex.
While sex education has been compulsory in Colombian schools since the 1990s, many parents have rejected such teachings – leading to a cultural taboo regarding the discussion of sex, let alone how to go about it safely.
The fact that a 22 year old womAn was no naïve as to believe that a potato was an appropriate and safe method of contraception shows a concerning lack of education for young people as to the options available for them when they become sexually active.
Sexual education became obligatory across Colombia in the 1990s in the hope that young people would discuss any quieries or concerns and have a safe place to discuss what was perceived as a social taboo – talking about sex.
However, parents, shocked by the content of the classes protested against them and created groups such as the “Red Families” urging other parents to denounce the lessons in which teachers were accused of encouraging homosexuality.
Furthermore, according to the Ministry of Education and sociologist María Eugenia Rosselli, “you cannot ask a young person to freely discuss sex with their parents,” creating a void of information and high levels of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
Sources: Colombia Reports; Las 2 Orillas
