Make Space for All Kinds of Love – The Doctor Orders

Shibira is an advocate for Feb 14 to become a day to celebrate All Kinds of Love – love for animals, love for parents, love for nature and most importantly Self-Love. We met a cuddly comforter of a guest in a loving relationship with her own self as well as with her skill of birthing new life – IVF assisted and naturally.

We saw her interacting with Shibira, the coffee forest, the landscape, the sun sets, in a tender way, admitting candidly that she learnt upcycling from Shibira, responding to our critique of Indian doctors’ poor communication skills with empathy, expressing the purest form of FOMO speaking about her sisters’ experiences with animals as an Army Vet, arguing with her beloved with wit and drawing us in by speaking tenderly about missing a cat –  an animal she met at an Air BnB for just a month while her husband does an observership at Nimhans, Bangalore!

We invited her to our Sacred Grove – the Knowledge Hive – and she agreed. Indeed this millennial nurtures many loves including romantic intimacy! We thought that Dr. Mridula Raghav MBBS MS OBG, FRM(ICOG) Obstetrician – Gynecologist & Fertility Specialist, could bring unique tools and resources to Knowledge Hive which will urge girls to become better at Self Love and men to better care for their girls.

Here goes :-

Being a Gynecologist and a fertility specialist, seeing women of all ages in their most vulnerable times and forms, has almost made Mridula a woman advocate in all aspects. While her Fauji upbringing and medicine studies has put wheels beneath her feet, we realize that she practices her craft with a lot of feeling. Feelings of bringing forth new life when she helps birth a baby, feelings of happiness when she heals, feelings of successful counselling when a patient is sad and under pressure.  Her women-care belief systems are mature and she believes that a gynae is not only central for reproductive health in childbearing years and cancer screenings in the later life, but it’s a women’s self care relationship that should be in perpetuity.

 “Girls should start visiting a Gynaecologist in their teens. A girl should walk in first at the age of 9 years to get her HPV vaccine shot, which is the only vaccine available against cancer of the mouth of uterus or cervical cancer. Many parents do not find it easy to educate their girls about menstruation, what is normal, what is abnormal, how their puberty will look like, what is the ideal age for starting sexual activity, safe sex practices, contraception, and issues like period pain. A Pap smear + HPV DNA screening is recommended every 5 years starting from the age of 21 years if you are sexually active. If you have had an uneventful teenage and reproductive life, then 40 years is the age you should start seeing a gynac regularly till your menopause and even after it.  I would want to do a breast mammography every year and a transvaginal ultrasound pelvis after age 40,” Dr. Mridula says.

With the knowledge she now has and the understanding of the biology of a woman’s body, and the mistakes that women often make, she offers some best practices that if implemented can help women. “Exercise and muscle building will not help if you start it late because as women age hormone estrogen becomes lesser in our body which has a role in bone metabolism so if you strength train from a young age you see the benefits towards menopause. The one thing that I want every woman to add to their life is strength training. It keeps your hormonal health in check which means good period health, a smooth perimenopausal transition, and a tolerable menopause. Another important aspect is that while injuries, genetics, and nutrition do play a role in bone and joint health, if the root cause of aches and pains stays invisible, then it could be psychological so seeking professional help will be a game changer for mobility & health.”

Women with multiple partners must use condoms or protection because not using them puts them at a risk of getting STDs and later cervical cancer in old age, she says. “Take your HPV shot against the only preventable cancer ie cervical cancer. If you are sexually active get a pap smear + HPV DNA done every 5 years. Avoid smoking and drinking alcohol because they are known hormone disruptors and can also contribute to infertility.”

We speak about her experiences as a fertility specialist and how it is sad that women bear way too many mental and physical health burdens when they are not able to have children. Mridula firmly responds “First of all, men contribute equally to infertility. Up to 40% cases are due to male factor infertility. IVF is a miracle story. The couple should be a strong team when going on that route. The mental stress on women is more common most of the time because most of the difficult parts of IVF like taking hormones and undergoing a procedure are dealt with by a female because women are only able to produce one egg per month naturally whereas a man produces millions of sperm in one day. The method of sperm collection is also simple and non-invasive because it just means masturbation if the man does not have male factor infertility.”

“The baby is the love and biological representation of the mother and father. In India, cobirthing is not commonly practiced because of the limitation of resources and other reasons while it is quite common in the West where both mom and dad birth the baby together. So it is also just not something for fun but a moral duty that the baby after being shown to the mother be handed over to the father, although families may still choose together who should hold the baby first after the mother. Here in that video, the mother wanted me to give the baby first to the father , she says candidly.

So is social media going to remain, as it is developing now, as a new communication platform for doctors? “It started during COVID-19 when people could be helped in large numbers at once. Telemedicine has picked up in India, at least since then. Now you can see doctors from nearly all specialties right there doing their best. On my own social media women and couples express connect and educate themselves.

But isn’t so much of it confusing, often contradictory gibberish ? “No. I have been able to help more than 30 couples become parents, and helped young girls navigate menstrual problems, PCOS, endometriosis, and much more. So I feel strongly for doctors using social media to educate people. We can choose what we see and consume. It’s how we eat our food. The right social media following has made me so much more aware as a doctor and in general. So it’s certainly good if rightly consumed, ” she adds mildly but firmly.

While it is true that women nowadays don’t have as many babies as many decades ago thus their bodies are not as stressed as our foremothers bodies were, Mridula finds that by manifesting good, most expectant mothers ride out the stress that the one n only child they are carrying be absolutely healthy. “I have seen many mothers expressing when asked what they desire of their pregnancy, how they feel about it, that they just want a healthy baby and choose to not take the added stress that the one child they are carrying must be 100 percent healthy.”

Mridula says she is the kind of ladies doctor she would want for herself when she decides to be a mother. “Pregnancy is a natural state of low immunity and a lot of changes in the mother’s body. Families are extremely emotional and sensitive at that time. Many pregnancies can be challenging when complicated. I have  seen women go to any extent to build a family, most of the time for the love she shares with her partner, but many times due to immense family pressure, through multiple pregnancies to have a boy child. Generally Obstetrics and Gynaecology is a happy field because we are completing families but it also means we are handling two lives at a time- the mother and the baby so I am the kind of doctor who searches for and then respects that every patient might demand something different from me. Couples struggling with infertility, and pregnant couples are often accompanied by their parents and there is a fine line in interpersonal relationships. I watch out for and respect those, sometimes, as their doctor, but many times, as also the person who doesn’t want her patients to stop doing what they love, speak for themselves, and tell the various people invested in their parenthood journey, to hold their boundaries.”

So you counsel them as well but that needs communication skills and doctors are not taught how in their studies, we lament. Mridula acknowledges our experiences but pushes back kindly, “There are few bads everywhere- bad chefs, bad lawyers, bad leaders, bad bureaucrats, and the list goes on so I won’t like to generalize anything.  But it is true that being a doctor is not a routine job, it’s a big responsibility, and people tend to lose their emotional acumen with time. It’s not only a few doctors who are harsh on people but many times some families, and patients too who are extremely harsh on the doctors. From early in life, I needed to communicate well, to be seen & heard and to make new friends, every three years in tandem with every new posting of my father and that how my ground of learning how to communicate is pretty fertile”, she grins adding that she has also learnt from exceptional mentors specifically mentioning her father-in-law whose orthopedic practice in Vadodara has a formidable  legacy of care.

Mridula was born to a fauji father and a homemaker mother. Eldest of three siblings, studying in various Kendriya Vidyalaya throughout India, she was able to meet students from all places, religions, and societal classes.

Mridula was a bright student with a junior diploma in classical dance form Kathak, and a national Basketball and Rowing player. Between Medicine and Engineering she liked Medicine( Biology ) more and left home for Bombay at the age of 18.

“I did my MBBS and MS there. I like to say I grew up in Bombay, and in those 12 years, I never faced any major issues being all alone in an entirely new town. Thanks to Udgam studying in Manipal I could come and provide my service in the South India.

and now soon enough I am off to the West of India. I go to where Udgam grew up – the cultural city of Vadodara.  There is a joke that I can find a friend in any corner of India, and it’s quite true.” she adds with a twinkle in her eye. Ask her Where she would like to be born next and Mridula describes her ultimate travel destination …

Indeed Love Takes you Places!

Our Teachers Day Sept 5. 2025 edit is up.Read How to gain Agency over your life and develop a High Agency Mindset.

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