A Voice For the Voiceless
The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. We recruit graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.
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Medical
Uterine prolapse is a condition in which a woman’s uterus can no longer be supported by the pelvic muscles that normally hold it in place. As a result of the weakening of the pelvic muscles, the uterus falls out of position and descends through the vaginal canal. Also known as “fallen womb,” pelvic organ prolapse, prolapsed uterus or genital prolapse, uterine prolapse, or UP, can be diagnosed and classified into three stages of severity (Bonetti et al. 2004):
First degree: the uterus has begun to slip out of its normal position, and the cervix (narrow end of the uterus) only appears at the vaginal opening when the woman is bearing down
Second degree: the cervix has descended into the vulva
Third degree: the cervix protrudes beyond the vaginal canal and the entire uterus may extend beyond the vulva
Degrees of prolapse and symptoms vary from woman to woman and can include difficulty walking, working, standing, sitting, lifting and squatting. Women have also reported lower back pain, foul smelling discharge, ulcer on the prolapse, and pain while urinating, defecating, and having intercourse.
The UNFPA Nepal has released the most reliable nation-wide figures on UP to date. They estimate that 600,000 women in Nepal are suffering from uterine prolapse, and that 200,000 of those women need immediate surgery to treat the condition (UNFPA). Information about the condition in Nepal remains limited, however, despite a recent increase in research on other reproductive health conditions in Nepal (Bonetti et al. 2004). UP has proven to be a difficult issue to study and address, because of the private nature of the condition and the silence that most sufferers maintain.
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