Some prominent abortionists suggested a child last week after a 10-year-old Ohio girl who crossed the state border to get an abortion gained national attention. Should have carried her pregnancy to maturity..
However, midwives and doctors working in countries where pregnancy is common in adolescent young girls encourage very young girls to carry their pregnancy to maturity, the cruelty of pregnancy and childbirth to the child’s body. He says he may not understand the sacrifice.
“Their bodies are not ready for childbirth and it is very traumatic,” said Marie Bas Gomez, a midwife at the Bundung Maternal and Child Health Hospital in The Gambia and a senior nurse at the Reproductive and Pediatric Health Clinic. Told.
An important issue is that the child’s pelvis is too small to pass through even a small fetus, said Dr. Ashok Dyalchand, who has worked with a pregnant adolescent girl in low-income areas of India for over 40 years.
“They have long deliveries, dystocia, and the fetus strains the bladder and urethra,” sometimes causes. Pelvic inflammatory disease and rupture of the tissue between the vagina and the bladder and rectum are described by Dr. Dyalchand, who leads an organization called the Institute of Health Management Pachod, a public health organization that serves communities that have reached the limits of Central India. rice field.
“It’s a dire situation, especially for girls under the age of 15,” he added. “Complications, morbidity, and mortality are much higher in girls under the age of 15 than in girls between the ages of 16 and 19, but mortality between the ages of 16 and 19 is twice that of women over the age of 20. be.”
The phenomenon of a young girl giving birth to a baby is relatively rare in the United States. In 2017, when data were available, girls under the age of 15 had 4,460 pregnancies, with just under half ending with abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights and regularly surveys clinics. Was.
But globally, there are complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth. The main cause of death for girls According to the World Health Organization, 15-19 years old.
According to the report, the age of young mothers is associated with an increased risk of maternal anemia, infections, eclampsia and preeclampsia, emergency cesarean delivery and postpartum depression. 2014 evaluation It was published in the Journal of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine.
Dr. Willibald Zeck, the United Nations Population Fund’s maternal and newborn health coordinator, said he frequently gave birth to young mothers and later supervised them while working as a gynecologist in Tanzania. Nepalese and Filipino mother health program.
Pregnant 10-year-old women in Ohio may be able to take advantage of cesarean delivery to blunt the effects of prenatal care and dystocia, but the pregnancy experience of young girls is the same in India as in the United States. Dr. Dial Chand said. “Girls will experience more or less exactly the same kind of complications. The only difference is that they may not have the same kind of terrible results for better access to medical care. It does not mean that the girl’s body and her life will not be hurt. “
Dr. Shershah Syed, a Pakistani obstetrician and gynecologist and maternal mortality expert, provides regular care to 11-year-old pregnant women.Called Fistula — Causes urine leaks and feces, not only painful (urine leaks cause burns), but also causes shame and humiliation.
But even good prenatal care cannot prevent the high blood pressure and urinary tract infections that are common in very young mothers, he said.
“In normal physiology, a 10-year-old child should not be pregnant. The important thing is that she is a child, and the child is unable to give birth and is not ready,” Dr. Sayed said. I added.
When he sees, early pregnancy often impedes the physical growth of very young mothers and often causes her mental development as many girls graduate from school and lose their normal social interactions with their peers. He said he would stop. However, while an anemic mother struggles to continue her pregnancy, the fetus gets the right nutrients and continues to grow until the young mother’s pelvis is well above what it can provide.
“They give birth for three, four, and five days, after which the baby usually dies, and when the head is folded, the baby gives birth,” says a common delivery disorder in pregnant girls. Dr. Syed, one of South Asia’s prominent experts in the resulting obstetric fistula repair, said.
In almost all of these, the girl developed a bladder-vaginal fistula, a hole between the wall of the bladder and the vagina. In one-quarter of cases, prolonged labor also causes a rectal fistula, resulting in the girl constantly leaking both urine and feces.
If a patient with a fistula learns that treatment is available and goes to his clinic, Dr. Sayed said he can repair the condition. However, this process requires a long recovery. It takes about 5 weeks for the bladder fistula to heal, but 4-5 months for the rectal fistula.
In 1978, Dr. Dyalchand began his public health career at a small district hospital in the countryside of Maharashtra on the west coast of India. In his first week, two young pregnant girls shed blood and died. One in labor and the other at the entrance to the hospital, before she entered. It began him in a long career where he worked with the community to persuade them to delay the age of his marriage and the girl’s first conception.
The intervention has shown considerable success, and Dr. Dyalchand said India is also steadily expanding access to abortion. The procedure is legal until the 24th week of pregnancy.
In The Gambia, Bass Gomes said her clinic can provide excellent prenatal care for pregnant girls, but it rarely blunts the greater trauma of the experience. She said her clinic was designed to serve adults. “But if you take a similarly pregnant child for a walk, it’s really traumatic for the child,” she said. “It’s not comfortable, its environment, it’s not set for them. You can say they’re struggling. There’s a lot of shame and shame.”
