According to a report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, conflicts and crises have a severe negative effect on the reproductive health of women.
The problem is one that should be getting more attention from health workers operating both inside and outside conflict-stricken areas, according to the RCOG.
The article is entitled Reproductive health during conflict, and was published Friday by RCOG's journal The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist.
Women reproductive health should be treated by doctors and health workers with more sensitivity according to the article, especially since global migration has been rising along with refugees running from various causes.
RCOG also says that, despite the article's focus on conflict, the issues that are addressed can be applied to most kinds of crisis situations.
"Conflict can negatively impact all aspects of reproductive health, directly through damage to services, gender-based violence, and forced displacement of populations, and indirectly through reductions in the availability of basic health care and breakdown of normal social institutions," the article wrote.
The report revealed conflict causes high maternal mortality rates. This is due to the displacement of families, lack of proper transportation, poor security measures and the disruption of important health services. According to figures by the World Health Organization, out of the 10 countries that have the highest ratios of maternal mortality, eight of them are currently experiencing or have recently experienced conflict.
The article adds that there are about 170,000 maternal deaths that are happening per year during humanitarian emergencies, with around 15 percent of pregnant women displaced from their homes to experience life-threatening complications in child bearing and child birth.
These potentially fatal complications include obstructed labor, sepsis, eclampsia and hemorrhaging, which remains as the leading cause of maternal death all over the world.
Violence based on gender, which includes rape, during times of conflict further threatens women's reproductive health, as victims are not only put at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and HIV but also prone to suffering from trauma.
Times of conflict also claims family planning as a casualty, with clinics and health centers closing to make the supply of contraceptives inaccessible and unreliable for the affected people. This would lead to increases in unwanted pregnancies and illegal and dangerous abortion.
The article estimates that unsafe abortion practices are the cause of 13 percent of maternal fatalities all over the world, with most of the cases coming from Africa.
The authors of the article are Benjamin Black, Paul Bouanchaud, Jenine Bignall, Emma Simpson and Manish Gupta.
