Tears for My Sisters: The Tragedy of Obstetric Fistula

Traces the horror of obstetric fistula—a condition that has been largely forgotten in the developed world—and lays out a plan for its eradication.

Millions of women suffer from obstetric fistula, a catastrophic childbirth complication that exists today mainly in the world’s poorest countries. Fistulas are created by the prolonged pressure of the fetal head in the birth canal during obstructed labor, which grievously injures a woman’s bladder, leaving her incontinent. With a fistula, a woman’...