In northwestern Pakistan, Peshawar, a woman arrived in the emergency room after driving a nail through her head.
- Traditional healers, with practices often rooted in Sufi mysticism, are common in Pakistan.
- This country is overwhelmingly Muslim.
There are countries where the pressure to have a boy is so strong that women put themselves in danger. This is what just happened in Pakistan, where a young mother drove a nail through her head on the advice of a healer, in order to be sure of delivering a male baby. Otherwise, her husband had threatened to divorce her (the couple is already the parent of three little girls, editor’s note).
External bleeding
The Pakistani presented to the emergency room with significant external bleeding but perfectly conscious. “She told me that a local woman had done the same thing and had given birth to a boy when the ultrasound showed her future child to be a girl,” said Dr Haider Suleman, the neurosurgeon who treated her at Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.
As the x-rays of the unfortunate girl have gone viral on the Internet show, the young woman, three months pregnant, drove the nail into her head to a depth of 5 centimeters*. Her cries of pain alerted her family, who took her to the hospital.
Led by her desire for a baby boy, a pregnant woman in #Peshawar hammered a nail into her head on the advice of a supposed faith healer, a move that has left doctors stunned and police searching for the victim and culprit. @TFT_
For more, Visit: https://t.co/LM1fSO58fd pic.twitter.com/ldPSV8Bdxr— The Friday Times (@TFT_) February 9, 2022
Delicate operation
The injury, serious, requires a delicate operation to be able to remove the nail without damaging the skull, as reported The Friday Times. Pakistani police have said they will bring the fake healer to justice, who, I quote “played with the life of an innocent woman”.
*Other sources say it was the healer who drove the nail in his head.
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