women in london

Taking Action to End Child Marriage
Child Marriage and OBSTETRIC FISTULA

Obstetric Fistula is a preventable and debilitating condition linked to poverty, and inadequate provision of primary health care including maternal and child health services. The compounding factors include prolonged and/or obstructed labour, powerlessness and low social status of women and girls resulting in lack of knowledge and autonomy in issues relating to reproductive health and childbirth.

Obstetric fistula has severe physical and social consequences and is one of the most degrading morbidities resulting from pregnancy and childbirth. Approximately 80% of fistula cases reported in Nigeria are due to unrelieved obstructed labour during childbirth.

FORWARD Nigeria works to improve the health and socio-economic status of women affected by vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF). Funded by DFiD and Big Lottery since 1998, the project uses a holistic approach to address prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and community reintegration for women who have experienced the trauma of living with a VVF. High demand for services and lack of infrastructure means that we need your help more than ever.

Many victims of obstructed labour, who develop fistulae, will also often have given birth to a stillborn baby, thus leaving the woman childless and in some cases at risk of infertility. If the fistula is not repaired, and the woman remains incontinent and childless, due to social pressures women are often abandoned by their husband, on whom they are often economically dependent. Victims often become social outcasts.

Obstetric Fistula leaves such women physically, emotionally and socially traumatised. With often no education, no vocational training, no gainful employment or visible means of livelihood, they travel a long road of rejection and pain.

According to UNFPA, the success rate of fistula treatment is 90%. The average cost of a fistula treatment and postoperative care is $300. 2 million women in Africa, Asia and the Arab region currently live with this condition, and annually 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occur.

“My second day in labour at the hospital, the birth attendant reported my case to the doctor on call, who decided to induce me. The inducement ended up with no delivery. The following morning the birth attendant insisted that I lay on the bed and push. I pushed several times without any feeling of something coming out except the terrible pain.

On the fifth day in the hospital my legs could not hold me up; I started becoming unconscious. On reaching the specialist hospital, the baby had already died in the womb. The next day I had a caesarean section. Later I was told I had VVF and RVF and my surgery was to be in stages.

On the sick bed, my mother noticed I had wasted my bed and after a while we realised the urine was coming out without control. My family were not happy by they still took care of me, but my husband was not caring at all. 4 days after the CS the wound was septic with urine and faeces matter coming out of it.

The first repair was on RVF and I had the second operation nine months later. I also got 3 repairs on VVF. These were not successful but now I manage the condition. I have to use nappies, and when I sleep I use a waterproof sheet.”

A VVF and RVF survivor