The World Kidney Day is also the same day as the International Women’s Day. This should bring more focus on the health and wellness of women.
Kidney disease when chronic comes with adverse outcomes of kidney failure and premature death. This is fast becoming a global public health problem. As a matter of fact, it is currently the 8th leading cause of death in women, with close to 600,000 deaths each year thus, affecting over 195 million women across the globe.
From research, kidney transplant is said to be possible but this has not been in favor of women due to global inequality. There is a lack of equitable healthcare access for women. There is also lack of proper information to get women aware of what to do and the many chances available for their survival of chronic kidney disease.
For the pregnant women especially, chronic kidney disease can be quite challenging to both the mother and the baby because of the high rates of hypertensive disorders and pre-term birth. However, on dialysis, results improve with intensive (daily or nearly daily) dialysis treatment, thus calling for dedicated programs for women of childbearing age. In successfully transplanted women, fertility can be restored and chances of successful birth increase. This shows that we still have lots of educative programs to organize for the advantages of women as well as actions to take to make sure health facilities are more favorable to women.
If we still keep handling women’s health with levity, the burden of maternal mortality might be on the increase especially in the developing countries.
Therefore, today being the World Kidney Day and the International Women’s Day 2018, it is a golden opportunity to reflect, decide and take active measures to secure the health of women and girls of this generation and the ones coming after.
