page_title: Woman
section_title: Health
hierarchical_section_title: Woman / Health
caption_attribution_description: Pregnancy in the 26th week.
context_page_description: A woman is an adult female human. The term woman may also refer to a girl. The plural women is sometimes used for female humans regardless of age, as in phrases such as "women's rights."
  Typically, a woman has two X chromosomes and is capable of pregnancy and giving birth from puberty until menopause. Female anatomy, as distinguished from male anatomy, includes the fallopian tubes, ovaries, uterus, vulva, breasts, Skene's glands, and Bartholin's glands. The adult female pelvis is wider than the male's, the hips are generally broader, and women have significantly less facial and other body hair. On average, women are shorter and less muscular than men.
  Throughout human history, traditional gender roles have often defined and limited women's activities and opportunities; many religious doctrines stipulate certain rules for women. With restrictions loosening during the 20th century in many societies, women have gained access to careers beyond the traditional homemaker, and the ability to pursue higher education. Violence against women, whether within families or in communities, has a long history and is primarily committed by men. Some women are denied reproductive rights.
context_section_description: There are some diseases that primarily affect women, such as lupus. Also, there are some sex-related illnesses that are found more frequently or exclusively in women, e.g., breast cancer, cervical cancer, or ovarian cancer. Women and men may have different symptoms of an illness and may also respond to medical treatment differently. This area of medical research is studied by gender-based medicine.  The study of female reproduction and reproductive organs is called gynaecology.
  The issue of women's health has been taken up by many feminists, especially where reproductive health is concerned. Women's health is positioned within a wider body of knowledge cited by, amongst others, the World Health Organization, which places importance on gender as a social determinant of health.
  Maternal mortality or maternal death is defined by WHO as "the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes."  In 2008, noting that each year more than 100,000 women die of complications of pregnancy and childbirth and at least seven million experience  serious health problems while 50 million more have adverse health consequences after childbirth, the World Health Organization urged midwife training to strengthen maternal and newborn health services. To support the upgrading of midwifery skills the WHO  established a midwife training program, Action for Safe Motherhood.
  About 99% of maternal deaths occur in developing countries. More than half of them occur in sub-Saharan Africa and almost one third in South Asia. The main causes of maternal mortality include pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, unsafe abortion, pregnancy complications from malaria and HIV/AIDS, and severe bleeding and infections following childbirth. Most European countries, Australia, Japan, and Singapore are very safe in regard to childbirth.
  In 1990 the US ranked 12th of the 14 developed countries that were analyzed and since that time the death rates of every country have steadily improved while the US rate has spiked dramatically. While the others that were analyzed in 1990 show a 2017 death rate of fewer than 10 deaths per every 100,000 live births, the U.S. rate rose to 26.4. Furthermore, for every one of the 700 to 900  women who die in the U.S. each year during pregnancy or childbirth, 70 experience significant complications, totaling more than one percent of all births.
caption: Pregnant woman
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