Minimum of 40 million women are impacted every year

35% of women experience pain during sex after pregnancy

Level of agency of woman affects pregnancy: Lancet Study

A World Health Organization (WHO) report based on a study by the Lancet Global Health has indicated that more than 33% of women experience long term repercussions of childbirth. “Pain during sexual intercourse (dyspareunia), affecting more than a third (35%) of postpartum women, low back pain (32%), anal incontinence (19%), urinary incontinence (8-31%), anxiety (9-24%), depression (11-17%), perineal pain (11%), fear of childbirth (tokophobia) (6-15%) and secondary infertility (11%),” were the major health problems noted. This was observed to impact a minimum of 40 million women every year. 

There was a recognition that this was not given enough importance and remained unrecognised among health practoners in the study. “Maternal health is not just something that we should start worrying about when the pregnancy bump appears. There are many factors that influence the likelihood a woman will have a healthy pregnancy, from the environment around her to the political and economic systems she lives in, to access to nutritious food and the level of agency she has over her life – all of these factors need to be addressed to improve her health, alongside access to high quality healthcare throughout life,”  Joao Paulo Souza, Centre Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (BIREME) for PAHO (Pan American Health Organisation)/WHO, an author of “A global analysis of the determinants of maternal health and transitions in maternal mortality” stated.