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End Fistula | UNFPA Asia Pacific

What is Obstetric Fistula?

What is Obstetric Fistula?

Obstetric fistula is a traumatic childbirth injury. It results from prolonged, obstructed labour, which generally occurs when women struggle to access timely, high-quality maternal health care, resulting in uncontrollable leaking or urine and/or faeces.

The condition often leaves women shamed and shunned from society. Left untreated, obstetric fistula causes lifelong morbidity with severe medical, social, psychological and economic consequences. 

Did you know?

Despite fistula being treatable and preventable, half a million women and girls worldwide continue to live with this condition. Thousands of new cases occur annually among women in hardest to reach communities, including across Asia and the Pacific.

How can it be prevented?

How can it be prevented?

Fistula is completely preventable. By ensuring skilled birth attendants and care are available during deliveries and with timely access to quality emergency obstetric care, fistula can be  prevented. 

Fistula is also treatable, yet many women and girls continue to live with stigma and shame, completely isolated from their families. This is because many women and girls with the condition may not know that treatment and surgery is available that can transform their lives and help regain their dignity. In other instances, access to these services may also be challenging for women and girls, while the cost for the surgery can also deter women and girls from seeking services. 

Nepal

© ©UNFPA/Ruom/ Mailee Osten-Tan

  • Story: How a clinic in rural Nepal is giving women a chance for a brighter future

    Devi travelled almost five hours from the city of Katihar in eastern India to reach the specialist clinic at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS) in eastern Nepal. Located in Dharan, a city at the foothills of the Himalayas, it is the only facility in the area successfully treating obstetric fistula – one of the most serious injuries of childbearing.

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  • Video: Eliminating Obstetric Fistula and Child, Early and Forced Marriages in Nepal

    Watch as Dr. Mohan Chandra Regmi from Nepal speaks about obstetric fistula - a devastating condition that can have life-altering effects on a woman's physical and emotional well-being. Fistula is not only preventable but also treatable. Let's work to #EndFistula by 2030.

    Watch the video

Pakistan

© UNFPA Pakistan

  • Story: When there’s a will, there’s a way

    When Dr. Shershah returned home to Pakistan from his medical training in the UK in early 1990s he knew next to nothing about obstetric fistula, which is one of the most serious injuries of childbearing.“I was hoping to open an in vitro fertilisation clinic. But once I arrived at the government hospital and I saw what fistula was, I got very upset. I felt useless,” the veteran surgeon recounts one December afternoon from the city of Atlanta in the US, where he’s been fundraising for his Pakistan-based hospital.

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  • Video: Sobia's journey as a fistula survivor in Pakistan

    After giving birth to twins in 2013, Sobia from Pakistan developed fistula. Almost a decade later, with support from UNFPA for treatment and surgery in 2023, she is now completely healthy. Watch her journey as we mark International Day to #EndFistula 2024.

    Watch the video

Bangladesh

© UNFPA Bangladesh / Prince Naymuzzaman

  • Story: When there’s a will, there’s a way

    “It all started in the village. We’ve got family planning health workers, midwives and all of them are trained, with field workers going door to door, they also do family planning. In Bangladesh, we have skilled diploma-graduated midwives, so most deliveries are with skilled birth attendants, at the union level facility by the midwives” says Dr. Anowara Begum, Bangladesh’s veteran obstetric fistula surgeon, who has been helping women since the 1980s.

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What does UNFPA do?

What does UNFPA do?

Over the past two decades, UNFPA has supported 140,000 fistula repair surgeries; over 12,000 women and girls received social reintegration support between 2018 and 2023.   

UNFPA also ensures that governments around the world remain committed to strengthening the midwifery cadre because midwives provide the majority of first-line maternity care and are key to preventing fistula and other childbirth injuries. Yet, in 2021, the global shortage of midwives is estimated at 900,000.

Finally, UNFPA advocates for targeted investments to be made that uphold the rights and dignity of women and girls, so we can save lives and eradicate childbirth injuries forever, and for all. 

Millions of lives on the line. 

Investing to ensure equitable access to quality maternal health services can prevent fistula cases from happening – and women and girls from dying preventable deaths.

UNFPA Bangladesh