A third of women have health problems after childbirth

Every year, around 40 million mothers suffer from long-term health problems as a result of childbirth a third of those who give birth in the worldshows this Thursday a study by the World Health Organization (WHO), which calls for greater attention of health networks to these women.

A study published by the specialized journal The Lancet Global Health indicates that these problems are common dyspaurenia (pain during intercourse), which affects 39% of these 40 million women, or back disease, observed in 32% of cases.

Other commonly reported problems These are anal and urinary incontinence, anxiety, depression, perineal painfear of rebirth (tokophobia) or secondary infertility.

“A number of postpartum problems cause significant physical and emotional distress to women in their daily lives, long after childbirth, but are often underestimated, unrecognized or underreported,” the health director said when the study was published. WHO reproductive health expert, Pascale Allotey.

In this regard, the study points out that 40% of identified postpartum problems do not have a medical guide with recommendations to support effective treatments, nor have databases been created on these diseases at a global or even national level.

The study calls for greater recognition of these common problems by health networks and to this end recommends more effective care during pregnancy and childbirth, moments in which risks and possible complications in the future can be better detected.

“Women need to have access to health services that listen to their concerns and meet their needs, not only to survive childbirth, but also to have good health and quality of life,” Allotey said.

The article notes that these conditions are largely overlooked in clinical research, practice and policy, despite their prevalence. Reviewing the literature over the past 12 years, the authors found no recent, high-quality guideline documents on effective treatment for 40% of the 32 priority conditions analyzed in their study, nor did they find a single high-quality guideline document from low- or middle-income countries.

Data gaps are also significant: there have been no nationally representative or global studies of any of the conditions identified in the research.

The series entitled ‘Mother’s health in the perinatal period and after’ as a whole calls for greater attention to the long-term health of women and girls, both after and before childbirth.

His introductory article advocates the need for a holistic approach to reducing maternal deaths, focusing not only on their immediate biomedical causes, but also on the complex interplay of broader social, economic, and environmental conditions that affect women’s health, including inequalities caused by race or gender, as well as economic context, nutrition, sanitation, environmental risks or exposure to violence and conflict.

According to the article, a lack of attention to these fundamental issues helps explain why 121 countries out of 185 have not made significant progress in reducing maternal mortality over the past two decades.