Dear Sexually Active Indians, Visit A Doctor, Not Google, If You Suspect An Unwanted Pregnancy

Unprotected sex can easily lead to an unwanted pregnancy. If it does, please visit a doctor, instead of doing things that endanger the woman’s life.

‘I don’t know what I should do.’ Said Puneet (name changed).

And this is the statement that hundreds of Puneets make after having unprotected sex on a wild night. Even the change of name seems irrelevant to me.

He told this to me over a panicky phone call, four days after the intercourse, only after he was worried that his girlfriend had vomited twice. It was later found to be due to the previous night’s stale chaat corner.

Such is the state of knowledge of contraception of fully functioning working adults in our nation. Their beliefs of a positive pregnancy are shaped by retching scenes in melodramatic Bollywood movies than a sex education class. Because like ‘acchhe din’, there exists no such class in our country.

The aftermath of such situations is even worse. I had learnt from multiple sources (read: couples who had had unprotected sex under a belief that ‘nothing will happen’) that they had ‘managed’ an unwanted pregnancy via a little chat with the pharmacist at the local medical store. Within seven minutes or less, they can easily buy an abortion drug kit, without a prescription.

These are drugs that should only be bought with a prescription as per the guidelines. And it’s certainly impossible that pharmacist is not aware of it. It only adds to my horror that there are reports of Indian women using abortion kits to space pregnancy.

Then there are those cocky cases where the male refuses to wear a glove because of the ‘decrement’ in pleasure. The real problem arises when he reassures his love not to take the OCP (oral contraceptive pill) as he is stubborn on being the king of pulling out at the right time.

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I have many impossible friends who somehow believe that unprotected sex without ejaculation cannot lead to a pregnancy.

Do they actually know that one; yes, a single sperm out of the average 50 lakh sperms in a 0.05 mL single drop of their semen can cause conception? Do they know that there is something called as precum lingering the tip of a penis? If I count every person whom I have explained the mechanics to, I really don’t think so.

The problem is not the drugs meant for abortion which are found to be safe enough that they usually can be taken at home. The problem is the blatant negligence in caution, in awareness about these drugs. The problem is the stigma that full grown adults have in visiting a Gynaecologist.

Let me break it down for you: the issue which has upended your world is another monotonous narrative at the worst for your doctor. The medical abortion can be done till 12 weeks of the pregnancy counting from the first day of a woman’s last period. It is safer if done earlier.

A word of caution, though. While medical abortion is mostly safe, there is the possibility of life threating complications like excessive bleeding, septic shock, incomplete abortion etc.

That brings us to the next question: Will adults, caught up with stigma, who couldn’t face going to a gynaecologist in the first case, reach the emergency medical services ‘in time’ if a complication happens?

Being a former medical student and now a doctor, I have received many similar panick-y calls in hushed tones over the years, and I have a single advice for all of them: Visit a doctor, not Google.

Header image is a still from the movie Salaam Namaste

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