Did you know that modern C sections were invented by African women— centuries before they were standard elsewhere?
Midwives and surgeons living around Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria perfected the procedure hundreds of years ago. When a baby couldn’t be delivered vaginally, these healers sedated the laboring mother using large amounts of banana wine. They tied the mother to the bed for safety, sterilized a knife using heat, and made the incision, acting quickly as a team to prevent excessive blood loss or the accidental cutting of other organs. The combination of sterile, sharp equipment and sedation made the procedure surprisingly calm and comfortable for the mother.
After the baby was delivered, antiseptic tinctures and salves were used to clean the area and stitches were applied. Women rarely developed infections, shock, or excessive blood loss after a cesarean section and the most common problem reported was that it took longer for the mother’s milk to come in (an issue that was solved with friends and relatives who would nurse the baby instead).
In Uganda, C sections were normally performed by a team of male healers, but in Tanzania and DRC, they were typically done by female midwives.
The majority of women and babies survived this, and when questioned about it by European colonists in the mid-1800s, many people in Uganda and Tanzania indicated that the procedure had been performed routinely since time immemorial.
This was at a time when Europeans had only barely started to figure out that they should wash their hands before performing surgery, when nearly half of European and US women died in childbirth, and when nearly 100% of European women died if a C section was performed.
Detailed explanations of Ugandan C-sections were published globally in scholarly journals by the 1880s and helped the rest of the world learn how to save mothers and babies with minimal complications.
So if you’re one of the people who wouldn’t be alive today without a C-section, you have Ugandan surgeons and Tanzanian and Congolese midwives to thank for their contributions to medical science.
Wow. I wish they would teach things like this is school.
America in particular (Europe’s slightly better, but not much) only seems to remember Africa exists when it’s being visited by one of the four horsemen. Which is really sad. It’s an entire continent with a rich history, people.
our D&D characters had a pillow fight and it was. Amazing
How to run a pillow fight in d&d (lv11 characters):
1. Everyone starts with 30 pillow!HP, aka “Pillow Points”. When you hit 0, you are too tired/laughing too hard to keep going.
2. Melee attacks, Str-based; nobody has proficiency. Damage is 2d6 but only in Pillow Points (and no added Str)
3. All defensive or augmenting spells, maneuvers, etc, are permitted, but the only damage that may be done is with pillows. A spell that manipulates a pillow to do damage (eg, Catapult, Animate Objects) does the damage described in the spell (rather than 2d6), but in Pillow Points only
4. Suggestion: add an NPC child or two to encourage glee and the proper level of reckless vindictiveness
5. Suggestion: lighthearted battle music, like epic instrumental Christmas music
6. Suggestion: if the fight is still going strong at like Round 4, declare that everyone has practiced enough to now have proficiency with pillow attacks. Still 2d6 dmg.
