https://archive.md/laYpo
"Hirabai Koli’s medical reports were normal—but she wasn’t happy.
She had been monitoring her weight over the first two months of her pregnancy,
and she surprised community health-care worker Suraiyya Terdale when she asked
why she wasn’t gaining more. (To protect her safety and private health
information, Koli is being identified by a pseudonym.)
“It was an odd question—something I heard for the first time,” says Terdale.
She then remembers Koli saying, “Someone told me that if the pregnant mother’s
weight isn’t increasing fast, then it’s a girl child.”
Over 13 years of helping hundreds of women with childbirth in the Ganeshwadi
village of Maharashtra, India’s second-most populous state, Terdale had heard a
lot of medical misinformation, but never this particular myth. Terdale is an
accredited social health activist, or ASHA—part of an all-women cadre of 1
million community health-care workers. Across India’s villages, one ASHA is
appointed for every 1,000 people; they are responsible for over 70 health-care
tasks and make public health care accessible to people from remote areas and
marginalized communities.
Countering false information has become an increasingly important, if
unofficial, part of the job for each ASHA. Medical misinformation is rampant in
the country, especially in remote villages like Ganeshwadi, which has a
population of just a few thousand."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-maternal-health-india-ocean-conservation-canada-palm-oil/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
