Listen, I’m totally supportive of a DIY lifestyle. You wanna make your own makeup and cleaning products from scratch? By all means! Got 30 new uses for old timey mason jars? Tell me all about it! But for the love of god, don’t DIY your contraception, especially with root vegetables pulled from your garden. It’s a bad idea. Case in point: according to Colombia Reports, a 22-year-old woman, on the recommendation of her mother, stuck a potato in her vagina for two weeks in the hopes that it would prevent pregnancy. Instead, the potato grew roots, causing severe abdominal pain. The woman was hospitalized, the potato was surgically removed and she’s expected to be fine, but what isn’t so fine is the fact that Colombia’s youth population has been dissuaded from using real contraception.
According to Colombia Reports:
A recent campaign by Bienestar Familiar (ICBF) 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.
The fact that a 22-year-old women was so 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.
Seriously, has there ever been a better example of the desperate methods women will go to prevent pregnancy in the absence of sex education and access to birth control?
[Colombia Reports via Jezebel]
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