FemmeFocus Junction

  The other day one of my colleagues sent me an interesting photo from 2017. It is me in Chris Hani Baragwanath with my senior unit registrars. The image is captured as we are walking in one of the wards, and we accidentally happen to be wearing matching blue scrubs. I was thrilled to be working in Bara. Being exposed to a lot of different cases and growing well in my clinical and surgical skills. A specific registrar who is standing in the front was Dr Mapela. We rotated together for a major part of our registrar training. I learned a lot from him. He was much older than the other registrars I had worked with. He had a lot of knowledge and skill. He would often challenge the other seniors and consultants in the ward round, pull out the latest piece of evidence, and win the arguments. I remember he was on call for gynae and I was cutting caesarean sections. I had offered to do any gynae emergency cases so I would get more experience in that field. The one ectopic case I started...

 Seeing the post-partum women with their happy and healthy bundles of joy in the consulting rooms is the most rewarding thing . They are glad to be out of the house, most of them bring the little one and some leave them with the grandparents or a caregiver. The dads usually accompany the moms, if it is their first baby they often look exhausted and overwhelmed. Some dads ask the eager question of whether it is safe to have sex again! Pregnancy and childbirth are transformative experiences that affect every aspect of a person’s life, including sexual well-being. Despite this fact, most clinicians ignore sexual well-being. All we address in the six-week visit is emphasizing the importance of breastfeeding, pap smears, and contraception. Sexual health does not only affect individual well-being; it is an important part of relationship satisfaction. It is common that in the post-partum period the frequency of sexual engagement and desire declines. A lot of women report changes in arou...

  As parents, we experience various milestones with our babies from birth. The most delightful milestone of my baby was when she was about two months and she smiled at me for the first time! It was very rewarding after weeks of feeding, changing nappies, and sleepless nights she smiled at me and all the post-partum fatigue went away. Around four months she started crawling and I put her on the couch and she fell within 5 minutes, luckily she did not sustain any injuries, but I knew that she could crawl and move around and I needed to watch her. She has grown up so much, she can run around and climb and play. The other day I caught her standing on the table in the balcony and bending over the railing. Luckily I saved her and put the table away. Her favourite activity is watching Coco Melon, running outside, dancing to music, and playing with water. We had a short trip to Suncity and she slipped and fell in one of the shallow kiddie pools. She was very scared that day and had a fri...