Women’s Rights to Pain Relief After Surgery and Labor Analgesia

The health of women and girls correlates strongly with the social and economic well-being of a community or society. Acute pain during childbirth and surgery and chronic pain from gynecologic conditions such as endometriosis and fistulae are undertreated, especially in the countries with the fewest economic resources, worst environmental conditions and largest burden of infectious disease. Pain is a challenging condition to treat, but because it is a multifactorial physiologic process, there are many resource-efficient treatment modalities available, such as anti-inflammatory medications and regional anesthesia. This chapter explores the challenges of adequately treating acute and chronic pain affecting the women of low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). By examining how the individual situations of women in LMIC are being addressed by organizations working towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set forth by the United Nations, a framework for addressing this challenging problem is presented.