WiRED International Launches Health Module on Obstetric Fistula

BY ALLISON KOZICHAROW AND BERNICE BORN

WiRED International just released an Obstetric Fistula module on this preventable and treatable condition suffered by an estimated two million women living in underserved areas of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) calls obstetric fistula a “hidden” condition because it affects the marginalized populations of poor, often illiterate girls and women who, because of cultural isolation and poor health care, endure the illness in silence and shame. Obstetric fistula exists because healthcare systems fail to provide accessible, quality maternal health care, comprehensive emergency obstetric care and affordable treatment.

 

A fistula is an abnormal connection between two parts inside the body — such as the bowels and vagina — and the skin. An obstetric fistula is a hole or tear somewhere along the inner wall of the birth canal, which creates a passageway to some other part of the body. An obstetric fistula usually occurs after women experience long or obstructed labor — a major cause of maternal fatality during childbirth, especially when emergency obstetric care is unavailable.

 

Obstetric fistula exists because healthcare systems fail to provide accessible, quality maternal health care, comprehensive emergency obstetric care and affordable treatment.

A woman with an obstetric fistula experiences uncontrollable, embarrassing and harmful waste which comes out of the vagina, thus rendering her incontinent. This incontinence can lead to ulcerations, nerve damage in the legs, kidney disorders and even death if left untreated.

 

To prevent an obstetric fistula, women are advised to delay the age of first pregnancy, refuse early marriage, obtain family planning information and supplies, receive timely access to obstetric care and avoid harmful societal practices such as female genital mutilation.

 

An obstetric fistula can be repaired surgically, but most women don’t know that treatment is available and, if they do, often can’t afford it. The stigma attached to having an obstetric fistula with its severe pain, odor and fecal discharges forces women into social exclusion from their families and communities who then abandon them and consider them useless as wives and bearers of children.

 

WiRED’s Obstetric Fistula module describes the injury, its types, causes, risk factors, symptoms, testing, diagnosis and treatment. As with so many health conditions, WiRED stresses prevention as the key to ending obstetric fistula or any other illness.

 

WiRED remains committed to providing the educational tools and raising awareness on obstetric fistula and any other conditions which present obstacles to maternal health care and well-being in low-resource areas of the world.