Female circumcision and obstetric complications.

OBJECTIVES

To examine whether complications at delivery are associated with female circumcision.

METHOD: One thousand eight hundred and fifty-one women seeking family planning or antenatal care in three south-west Nigerian hospitals were interviewed and had a medical exam. The prevalence of complications at delivery for uncircumcised women and circumcised women with type 1 (partial or total removal of the clitoris) or type 2 (partial or total removal of the clitoris and part or all of the labia minora) were determined. Associations between self-reported complications at delivery and clinic-reported type of circumcision were analyzed using bivariate and multivariate logistic regression.

RESULT: Forty-five percent were circumcised; 71% had type 1 and 24% had type 2. Circumcised women had significantly higher risks of tearing and stillbirths when all pregnancies were analyzed.

CONCLUSION

Circumcised women experienced more obstetric complications, while there was no significant difference between women with type 1 and type 2.