On TikTok, a fake gynecologist approaches pregnant women to “train them for childbirth”. The services offered are as aberrant as they are illegal, and he is unfortunately not the only one.
Many expectant mothers experience anxiety as childbirth approaches. This fear of pain, or possible complications, is very common: one in five pregnant women suffer from it mildly to moderately, and up to 11% are affected by a truly severe and disabling phobia called tokophobia. And it is precisely this fear that certain malicious people play on social networks.
On TikTok, an influencer warns of the presence of “fake gynecologists” who offer shocking, and obviously illegal, services to pregnant women for “train for childbirth. Marya claims to have received several testimonies about a man who would approach patients on the social network, and also indicates that he “is not the only one” to crack down. In a video, the content creator reveals the messages sent by this “doctor”… and the least we can say is that there is cause for concern.
“If you don’t do anything as a woman to train yourself to give birth, you may have consequences later”explains the so-called gynecologist in a voice message addressed to an Internet user in private, playing in particular on the fear of a miscarriage or an episiotomy. To avoid these famous problems, he therefore offers appointments at his home, completely free, to help women prepare. The goal being “to learn to push, to let (the baby) out and to suffer”via methods as dangerous as they are useless: “We put a doll made for you in your vagina. (…) I’m also going to look at how you relieve yourself, how you put in a tampon, (…) I’m also going to see how you clean your vulva. Of course there is no taboo”he adds. The man wants to be reassuring, indicating that he uses hydroalcoholic gel to guarantee hygiene during his “consultations”.
Of course, there are supervised and legal childbirth preparation courses, which have nothing to do with these perverse practices. Moreover, this fake gynecologist goes so far as to ask women if they are “singles” because he wants the appointments to remain “intimate”, and he especially encourages them to chat on Snapchat, where the messages are ephemeral: so much proof of a totally illegal practice of medicine.
Unfortunately, this man is far from the only one. Over the past few years, the news has repeatedly been punctuated with articles about fake gynecologists trapping women on social media. Forced vaginal examinations, but also rapes and sexual assaults, in France as in Italy and even in Germany, these self-proclaimed doctors can act in the shadows for sometimes years. It should therefore be remembered that a real gynecologist will never offer an appointment at home, and even less through a social network: the reflex is to immediately report these problematic accounts on Pharos, the government portal dedicated to illicit content on the Internet.
