30 Women Health Issues You Should Know

30 Women Health Issues You Should Know

As a woman, understanding facts about the female body is the first step towards living a more healthy life.

The female body is one where certain ailments could go unnoticed for years until they progress to a point where they become a major bother in our lives. Knowing what these are, can save you weeks and months of stress and even pain.

There are also some generic issues, that while not being a must-know, will also be nice to know.

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That said, here are

30 Women Health Issues that will Amaze You

1) Every 90 seconds a woman dies trying to bring a child into the world (this is quite a sad one), that’s approximately 960 women losing their lives through childbirth daily.

The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies maternal mortality as death that occurs within 42 days of the termination of the pregnancy.

In the US, the maternal mortality rate is 17 deaths in every 100,000 live births.

2) A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s. Women have a smaller heart which would therefore need to beat faster to carry out the function of pumping out adequate blood around the body.

Testosterone in men enlarges their arteries, while the presence of progesterone and estrogen makes a woman’s smaller.

This difference puts women at a slightly higher risk of heart diseases since the arteries are a little more prone to blood clots and blockages.

Expectantly, research has found heart diseases to be the leading cause of death for women in the United States and accounts for one in every four deaths.

Related: 13 Daily Habits That Are Bad for Your Reproductive Health

3) Cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and stroke are three other top causes of death for women with breast cancer being the most common cancer type women experience. These diseases and ailments account for 20.7%, 6.2%, and 6.1% of deaths in women respectively the world over.

4) An estimated 12.5% of women will develop breast cancer during their lifetime, that’s 1 in 8 women so you want to carry out regular breasts examinations.

5) Tall women have twice the risk of developing cancer of all types (breast, uterine, ovarian, colon, leukemia, and even melanoma)

While unfair that a quality considered a positive one in most cases places you at risk of a certain disease, that’s just the way it is.

A study has found a woman’s risk of cancer increases by as much as 16% for every 4-inch increase in her height.

So, with the average height of women being 5.3 feet and 5.5 feet, women who are four inches taller than this average would have a 16% more increased risk of cancer. This risk increases further with every 4-inch increase in height.

On the other hand, taller women are believed to have healthier hearts.

6) 75 -80% of women wear the wrong bra size.

Prolonged wearing of the wrong bra size could bring about the following side effects:

• Breast aches and pains
• Unnecessary and premature sagging
• Shoulder, neck, and back pain
• Bad body posture
• Skin abrasion
• Blocked lymph nodes

7) More women report experiencing migraines (about 17%) as against men’s 6%.

Women experience migraines three times as often as men due to the presence of the female hormone, estrogen.

Even a drop in this hormone could trigger a headache lasting for as short as four hours or up to 72 hours.

8) Women-only diseases like polycystic ovarian disease, endometriosis, gestational diabetes, and high blood pressure in pregnancy increase the risk of coronary artery disease.

Endometriosis has actually been found to increase the risk of this heart condition by as much as 400% in women under 40 years of age.

9) Women are twice as likely to be depressed as men due to the biological differences in both sexes.

Women experience major depression a lot more and their risk for this increases from age 12.

10) Your clitoris doesn’t stop growing; it grows throughout your lifetime. It starts to grow during puberty and could grow to around 1.8 times its size by the time puberty stops and again after menopause.

This organ has around 8,000 sensitive nerve endings and its only function is pleasure.

More Women Health Issues…

11) Eastern Europe is known to have the highest abortion rate with 43 pregnancies out of every 1,000 being terminated.

12) Women spend an estimated 3,000 – 3500 days of their life menstruating.

Getting a period is actually a good thing as the blood colour, odour, and duration can hint you as to the true state of your reproductive health.

Studies have also found getting one also makes you appear more feminine, and happy since your body produces more estrogen after the first day, which triggers the release of endorphins, boosting your mood.

13) An estimated 20 million women the world over experience one eating disorder or the other.

The common types of eating disorder women experience are

• Anorexia nervosa
• Bulimia nervosa
• Binge eating disorder
• Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder

Over 20 million women in the United States have experienced one or more types of eating disorders with teenage girls and celebrities being the hardest hit.

14) Women from Nigeria are known to have the highest number of births an average of 7-8 births. A large number of these births come from the northern part of the nation.

Nigeria is believed to be one of the countries with the highest fertility rates in the world. Sadly, it also has one of the highest maternal mortality rates with 814 deaths per 100,000 live births.

15) Women generally have a higher life expectancy and could live up to eight years longer.

Studies have pegged a few reasons for this, with one of them being the biological differences between both sexes.

The presence of testosterone, the dominant sex hormone in men has been linked to a decrease in their immune system as well as a slightly more risk of cardiovascular diseases.

16) An estimated 15 -70% of women the world over have experienced one form of sexual abuse or the other and usually at the hands of someone known and trusted.

Read Also: 8 Top Causes of Delay When Trying to Get Pregnant

17) An estimated 10-15 million adolescent girls become mothers yearly.

3 in 10 American girls will become pregnant before they turn twenty and around 25% of these teen moms will go on to have another child within two years.

18) About 1,000 – 1,600 women and over 10,000 newborns lose their lives from pregnancy and childbirth-related complications daily.

19.Vesico Vagina Fistula (VVF) is a growing epidemic, especially in developing countries.

20) The main cause of VVF in women is prolonged labour and is characterized by an inability to control urine or faeces.

70 -80% of cases are caused by difficult, neglected, or obstructed labour.

Some cases of VVF go on to heal on their own while for a few others, a surgery would be required.

Yet More Women Health Issues…

21) A fistula is treatable but if not managed or treated in time could lead to complications like:

• Recurrent fistula formation
• Urinary tract infections
• Vaginal stenosis
• Cancer.

22) There are 3,000 new cases of VVF in Kenya yearly and Nigeria is reportedly one of the worst-hit countries with an estimated 500,000 combined cases.

23) Research has shown that women experience migraines more as an estimated 18% of women report experiencing this health discomfort as against the 6% of men who do.

24) Women are likely to experience more asthma symptoms due to the presence of smaller lungs.

25) Bacterial vaginosis is the most prevalent vaginal issue in women ages 15 -45.

26) One in seven women experiences unusually long bleeding during their period (lasting up to seven days).

Some common causes of prolonged bleeding in women include:

• Stress
• Certain birth control pills
• Uterine fibroids
• Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID)
• Endometriosis
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
• Premature Ovarian Insufficiency

27) Thirty to forty percent (30 -40%) of all infertility cases stem from the woman, another 30% from the man, and the rest is said to be as a result of unexplained infertility.

Studies have found over 25% of infertile couples have more than one factor contributing to this infertility.

The most common cause of fertility issues in women is irregular or abnormal hormone cycles and accounts for 25% of all fertility cases. Weight reportedly accounts for 12%.

For men, varicocele is the leading cause of male infertility and accounts for 40% of all infertility cases in men.

Other causes of male infertility include ejaculation disorder, antibodies that attack sperms, tumours, infections, genetic disorders, undescended testicles hormone imbalance, sperm transport issues, and low sperm count.

28) Some of the most common risk factors of infertility in women include being 35 years and above, having unhealthy lifestyle habits like excessive drinking and smoking, endometrial polyps, tubal factors, the infection left untreated, and other health complications like endometriosis, PCOS, and an irregular shaped womb, etc.

Related: 5 Prove Ways You Can Improve Female Fertility

29) impending heart attack symptoms differ in men and women.

While men experience a tightening in the chest and pain that soon spreads towards the left arm, all classic symptoms that warn you of this issue, women experience symptoms that can easilyy be overlooked.

Symptoms of an impending heart attack in women include gastrointestinal discomfort, extreme fatigue, or a fast heartbeat.

30) An estimated 50-75% of women experience post-partum depression after delivery, a women’s health condition which could take a while to go away.

Tags: common women health issues to know, women health and fitness tips