Women's health: An overview

’ President-Elect, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, and Senior Advisor, Biomedical and Reproductive Health Research, The Rockefeller Foundation. beyond the reproductive years and even if the system did not engage at all in reproduction, Apart from reproductive diseases, women share with men the risk of disease in all other body systems. Cardiovascular disease, for example, kills more women than genital cancer, including breast cancer, in both developed and developing countries [2]. Genetic and hormonal differences between males and females can be reflected in differences in the disease burden. The noble task of reproducing the species has been rewarded by Nature in a biological advantage to the female, making her a better survivor at all stages of the life cycle from intrauterine life to old age. Nature, in its wisdom, knew what researchers have documented only recently, that in poorresource settings survival of the mother is much more critical to survival of the infants and children than survival of the father (31.