ABSTRACT
The last decade and a half has seen great efforts to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates across the world. Despite this, many women in the developing world still do not have access to medical attention for the delivery of their child. Maternal mortality is still unacceptably high in these areas, and paralleling this are high rates of maternal morbidity. One of the most feared consequences of a morbid delivery is the obstetric fistula–reducing a woman to a life of shame, isolation, and misery and a life that sometimes ends in suicide or at least the victim wishing she had died during that frightful labor.
