Vesico Vaginal Fistula: What Do You Know About It?

I remember hearing the word Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF) and thinking “What does that mean? I goggled it and saw the meaning but I did not clearly understand it until I watched Stephanie Okereke’s movie titled \"Dry\". Stephanie Okereke is a Nigerian actress, film director and model.

\"Dry\" is a 2014 Nigeriandrama filmdirected by StephanieOkereke. The film's theme focuses onVesico Vaginal Fistulacondition and underage marriage among young women. It tells the story of a thirteen-year-old girl, Halima, whose poor uneducated parents married her off to Sani, a 60-year-old man, who constantly rapes her. Halima gets pregnant and suffers Vesico Vaginal Fistula after child delivery; she's consequently abandoned by her husband and discriminated against in the society.

VVF is a health condition that occurs during prolonged labor during which the vessels and the tissues that lie in the birth canal compress causing them to lose their blood supply and develop holes. These holes are located between the bladder and anus thereby causing a leakage of both faeces and urine which leads to foul odor as a result of the uncontrollable excretion.

According to Prof.Babatunde Osotimehin, Nigeria’s former Health Minister, Nigeria 'bears' the highest burden of VVF in the world. In July 2013, the then Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Zainab Maina, said Nigeria had been identified as the country with the highest prevalence of Vesico Vaginal Fistula in the world, accounting for about 0.4 million to 0.8 million out of the 2 million cases recorded globally.

In Nigeria, VVF has social, economic and religious implications. Many women with VVF are regarded as outcasts and marriages have been dissolved as a result of this. Many girls between the ages of 11 and 15 in Nigeria become mothers either through early marriage or unwanted pregnancies. They experience obstructed labour even as some unskilled birth attendants simply cut through the vagina to create passage for the baby, which eventually results in VVF, the leakage of urine and faeces through the vagina.The \"stinking\" nature of the condition makes women with VVF become outcast in the society.

Many believe that they major causes of VVF are “underage marriage” and “pre-teen pregnancy” but there are other underlying causes and they are: unskilled birth attendants and lack of access to functioning health facilities. We cannot overemphasize the importance of antenatal medications to a pregnant woman and her unborn child. It is a well known fact that majority of women in poor communities in Nigeria cannot afford proper medication and majority of those with the condition do not have access to functioning health facilities and most of the women are forced to deliver their babies at home or in a quack hospital with unskilled birth attendants.

Educating the youths on the dangers of unskilled birth attendants and unattended childbirth as well as providing free supply of antenatal medications across the country and creating easier access to health facilities will certainly make a lot of difference for so many women especially those from poor communities.