By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) – Female circumcision, which is practised
in more than 30 countries and affects 2 million girls each
year, could cause infertility.
Swedish researchers, who examined nearly 300 women in Sudan
where the practice is widespread, said on Friday women who had
undergone circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM),
were five to six times more likely to be infertile.
“All sorts of female circumcision, not only the severe
forms, probably cause an increased risk of infertility. This is
a very important argument to be used in areas where this is
practised,” Dr Lars Almroth, a paediatrician and researcher at
the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said in an interview.
Despite efforts to stop what human rights campaigners have
described as an atrocity against womanhood, female circumcision
is practised in Africa and is common in some countries in the
Middle East. It involves the removal of part or all of the
female genitalia.
An estimated 135 million women and girls have been
circumcised, according to the human rights group Amnesty
International.
It is considered part of the culture, a tradition or a rite
of passage to adulthood. In some countries it is viewed as a
means of reducing a woman’s sexual desire and of safeguarding
her fertility.
The research, which is published in The Lancet medical
journal, is the first clinical study to show it has the
opposite effect.
“We found that the more extensive form of genital
mutilation, the higher the risk of primary infertility. The
risk is very high — 5 to 6 times higher — than in the other
group,” Almroth said referring to women who had not been not
circumcised.
He and his colleagues believe infertility may be caused by
infection, inflammation, scarring or by the physical
alterations resulting from the circumcision.
In Sudan up to 90 percent of women have had some form of
genital mutilation. The average age of circumcision for women
in the study was 7 but it is performed on girls as young as 4,
according to Almroth.
In some countries crude instruments are used to perform the
circumcision and nothing is given to relieve the girl’s pain.
The researchers examined 99 infertile women and 180 others
who were pregnant for the first time from two hospitals in
Khartoum. They controlled for other factors that could cause
infertility, such as sexually transmitted infections, age and
social and economic conditions.
“It is only female circumcision that stands out,” said
Almroth.
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