GIRLS who are circumcised run the risk of infertility years later due to recurrent infections, a study in Sudan has found.
More than 132 million African women have had their genitals mutilated in this way and it is traditionally claimed to improve fertility. But few scientific studies have examined the health effects of female circumcision until now.
Paediatrician Lars Almroth and colleagues from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm studied 99 infertile women and 180 women who were pregnant for the first time at two hospitals in Khartoum. All had undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) as girls, ranging from partial clitoridectomy…
