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Middle East Fertility Society Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2007, pp. 144-144 BOOK REVIEW Mohamed Aboulghar, M.D. Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University Code Number: mf07026 Issues in women’s health: International and Egyptian Perspective. Mahmoud F. Fathalla. Assiut University Press, Egypt 2007. 273 pages. The book covers a wide area in the field of women’s health. The first chapter is an introduction which covers health development and the human rights issue specifically concentrating on women’s health and the issues of international concern on women’s health. Then the author on the next chapter proceeds to discuss the difference between man and women from the health perspective and what is missing in the health of the female. He then discusses the dangers of female circumcision (female genital mutilation) and its trauma and harmful effect on the health the girl. The discussion also covers the choice of fertility, the right of the women to have a baby and the right for safe motherhood. He lightly touches on the abortion dilemma particularly in areas where there are restrictions in induction of abortion and also touches on the menopause issue. He devoted a whole chapter to health and being a woman, and the sensitive issue that the woman is not a womb and the different factors which determine the women’s health including the unfair burden which women bear. He elaborates on the sexual and reproductive rights as parts of human rights, and he refers to the declaration and platform of action adopted by 187 UN member states in 1995 international conference on women. This makes explicit that the human rights of women include the rights of all women to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to sexuality including sexual and reproductive health free of coercion, discrimination and violence. One chapter entitled “The missing females” discusses an international perspective on prenatal sex selection and discrimination against the girl as child and compares this with international data. He discusses in details why boys are preferred to the parents as children and possible changes of this attitude during recent years. A whole chapter on the health of the adolescent girl including the demographic youth bulge and how can we cope with the population momentum and the subject of gender differential and the difficult choices of the girl and the problem of very young mothers and their ignorance, which makes a problem to find a solution. According to EDHS 2005 data the most commonly ever used medical method of contraception is the IUD (61%). The median age at first at first marriage is 20.4 years. There have been substantial increase over time in the median age at marriage within all areas of Egypt, although the changes in rural upper Egypt being generally marked. Consanguinity is very common in Egypt around one third of women marry a relative and over half of them marry a first cousin. There is a whole chapter devoted to the sex matters in women health and the sexually transmitted diseases, with very important and informative data. Infertility takes a very important part of the book as well as family planning. Both are thoroughly discussed in the books in great details Safe motherhood is also discussed in details with a touch on maternal mortality. The author also discusses victimization as a part of being females. He included the health consequences of violence against women with different types and definitions of violence. And also domestic violence in Egypt, the problem of rape and what is called honor crimes in Egypt. This book is a very interesting book with lots of very important data which are all up to date. It touches on very important points and it deserves reading. Copyright © Middle East Fertility Society |
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