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Janet Ogundepo Annually, about 50,000-100,000 women sustain obstetric fistula in the act of birthing new lives, and this condition subjects most to misery and stigmatisation. The condition, according to the United Nations Population Fund, is the most devastating of all pregnancy-related disabilities and Nigeria accounts for 40 per cent of fistula cases worldwide. As the world commemorates the International Day to End Obstetric Fistula on May 23, senior obstetricians and gynaecologists have called on the government to provide free maternal care, delivery and caesarean section for all pregnant women in the country.

They made the call amid Nigeria’s 12,000 new cases of obstetric fistula annually and the 2030 target to end the preventable and treatable condition. The International Day to End Obstetric Fistula is set aside by the United Nations to raise awareness and support for affected women. According to the World Health Organisation, OF is an abnormal opening between a woman’s vagina and bladder and or rectum, which allows the continual and uncontrollable leakage of urine or faeces.



This is caused by long and obstructed labour, whereby the baby’s head pressed against the pelvis reduces the flow of blood to the soft tissues surrounding the bladder, vagina and rectum. The WHO further noted that OF is caused by a lack of unskilled care, early marriage and childbirth, poverty, harmful traditional practices, and lack of family planning and birth spacing. However, in rare case.

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