Book chapter
Women Who Lose Their Lives While Giving Life: Exploring Obstetric Fistula as a Public Health Issue in Kenya
A Multidisciplinary Approach to Obstetric Fistula in Africa, pp.91-103
Global Maternal and Child Health, Springer International Publishing, 1
20/09/2022
Appears in Recent Faculty of Health Publications
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Abstract
Obstetric fistulas remain a public health crisis in most of the developing word but particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where health infrastructure is inadequate. This chapter provides a critique of the narrative that obstetric fistulas are a “women’s issue”. Instead, obstetric fistulas are positioned as an outcome of complex structural failures that undermine the efforts of women seeking emergency obstetric care. In particular, Kenya remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a woman and pregnant, with an estimated 3000 women and girls developing fistula annually, and 300,000 cases of untreated fistulas in the ever-increasing backlog. To understand the full picture of the obstetric crisis in Kenya, one must consider the structural face of health care and the gendered way in which it stratifies and marginalises women seeking care. Through this theoretical lens, the chapter also critiques the popular and dominant discourses that attribute fistulas to just ethnicity and culture. It highlights how the obsession with putting African cultures under intense scrutiny while discussing fistulas, minimises the attention we pay to structural factors contributing to them and therefore does little to offer a nuanced analysis of the problem and the nature of its complexity.
Details
- Title
- Women Who Lose Their Lives While Giving Life: Exploring Obstetric Fistula as a Public Health Issue in Kenya
- Creators
- Kathomi Gatwiri - Southern Cross University
- Contributors
- Laura Briggs Drew (Editor of compilation)Bonnie Ruder (Editor of compilation)David A. Schwartz (Editor of compilation)
- Publication Details
- A Multidisciplinary Approach to Obstetric Fistula in Africa, pp.91-103
- Series
- Global Maternal and Child Health
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing; Cham
- Edition
- 1
- Identifiers
- 991013052413102368
- Copyright
- © 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
- Academic Unit
- Social Work; Faculty of Health; Centre for Children and Young People
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter