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African Health Sciences, Vol. 5, No. 4, December 2005, pp. 284 Editorial Gender equity and reproductive health Code Numer: hs05048 I wish to welcome you to this December 2005 issue of African Health Sciences. It marks our thematic approach to publishing with this issue focusing largely on gender issues and reproductive health. Thus our lead article is on a one type of maternal hemorrhage that contributes to both perinatal and maternal morbidity and mortality. In a study of the risk factors for abruptio placenta (separation of a normally sited placenta from the uterine wall before delivery) in Mulago hospital in Kampala, Uganda, Wandabwa and colleagues compared 45 abruptio placenta women to 500 women with normal deliveries. Among the risk factors identified were chronic hypertension, recurrent vaginal bleeding, previous caesarian section and low socioeconomic status. 1 In a series of 20 cases, Michael Odida3describes a rare but important variant of cancer of the cervix in Uganda while Idowu reports on anaemia in pregnancy in Abeokuta in Nigeria2. We also bring you an interesting paper by Dan Kaye4 and colleagues on the implications of bride price on domestic violence and reproductive health in Uganda. Participants in the study perceived bride price as indicating that a woman was ‘bought’ into the man’s household, which reduced the woman’s decision-making roles. It limited the women’s independence and perpetuated unequal gender power relations especially health seeking behaviour. In a study from the same district, Lynn Atuyambe5 and colleagues studied the problems faced by pregnant adolescents. They found that the pregnant adolescents lacked basic needs such as shelter, food and security and faced relational problems with families, partners and the community. The authors call for the establishment of ‘youth friendly’ health and counseling services in order to tackle the problems faced by the pregnant adolescents who said: “they make us pregnant, but society blames us”. From Eritrea, Astier Almedom6 and colleagues assessed the impact of prolonged displacement on the resilience of Eritrean mothers, using sense of coherence (SOC) scores. The SOC scores of the displaced women were significantly less than those of the non-displaced. They contend that gender is critical: displacement had significant negative effects on women than men. They call upon international and local players especially in the health arena to address the plight of the internally displaced in such places as Eritrea and Darfur in the Sudan. In another paper on domestic violence, Dan Kaye7 and colleagues found that most health workers in the teaching hospital in Uganda had poor knowledge of domestic violence management or prevention. None of the respondents had skills for counseling victims of domestic violence and none had ever referred such women for counseling. In keeping with the gender theme, Adnan Hyder8 and colleagues report the interaction between food security gender inequity and women’s health in sub Saharan Africa. The rest of the issue reports on the competence of health workers in Somalia9, health seeking behaviour in western Kenya10, and under reporting of gravidity in Malawi11. We bring you several case reports: reaction (Steven Johnson syndrome) to nevirapine in Uganda12, a case of renal aspergilloma in an HIV infected patient13, and to crown this important gender issue: a case of giant hydrocele from Jos in Nigeria14 and anal tuberculosis.15 I wish you a merry Christmas and happy New Year! James K Tumwine References
Copyright 2005 - Makerere Medical School, Uganda |
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