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Obstetric fistula: the challenge to human rights
Author(s) -
Cook R.J.,
Dickens B.M.,
Syed S.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
international journal of gynecology and obstetrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.895
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1879-3479
pISSN - 0020-7292
DOI - 10.1016/j.ijgo.2004.07.005
Subject(s) - medicine , fistula , obstructed labour , vesicovaginal fistula , malnutrition , poverty , health care , obstetrics , pregnancy , surgery , economic growth , caesarean section , pathology , biology , economics , genetics
Obstetric fistula can be explained to result from different causes. These holes in the tissue wall between the vagina and bladder and/or rectum are most prevalent in resource‐poor countries, attributable to prolonged obstructed labour and absent or inaccessible remedial prenatal services. Obstructed labour is often due to small pelvic size, resulting from women's youth and premature childbearing and/or malnutrition. Poverty at national health‐service and family levels often predisposes pregnant populations to suffer high rates of fistula. Global estimates showing up to 100,000 new cases each year and 2 million affected girls and women are probably gross underestimates. Fistula devastates lives of sufferers, who are often expelled by husbands and become isolated from their families and communities. Failures of states to provide prenatal preventive care (including medically indicated cesarean deliveries) and timely fistula repair violate women's internationally recognized human rights, especially to healthcare in general and reproductive healthcare in particular.