As CURE International celebrates moms, we’d like to share one of the ways we are changing the lives of mothers at our hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Many Afghan mothers suffer with an obstetric fistula (OF). An obstetric fistula is a hole between a woman’s birth passage and one or more of her internal organs that usually develops when a woman gives birth. It has largely been eliminated in the West, but is still prevalent in the developing world.  (To find out more information, go here and here.)

There are many factors contributing to the existence of obstetric fistula in Afghanistan. They include lack of access to emergency obstetrical and/or prenatal care, malnutrition, poverty and limited formal education opportunities for women.

Read the rest of this entry »