Product Description

This work has been written to help women care for their own health, and to help community health workers or others to meet women's health needs - problems that affect only women, or that affect women in different ways from men. It combines self-help medical information with an understanding of the ways in which poverty, discrimination and cultural beliefs may limit women's health or access to care. Developed with community-based groups and medical experts from more than 30 countries, this book aims to help anyone understand, treat and prevent many of the health problems that can affect women. Topics featured in the book include: how to solve health problems; ways to stay healthy; understanding the reproductive parts of women's bodies; sexual health; HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases; pregnancy, birth and breast feeding; mental health; health concerns of women with disabilities, girls, older women and refugees; the politics of women's health; rape and other violence against women; and the use of medicines in women's health.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49415 in Books
• Published on: 1997-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 583 pages

From the Back Cover
Where Women Have No Doctor combines self-help medical information with an understanding of the ways poverty, discrimination and cultural beliefs limit women's health and access to care. Developed with community-based groups and medical experts from more than 30 countries, this book can help anyone understand, treat and prevent many of the health problems that affect women.

Customer Reviews

An easy-to-use, practical guide.
Tonight I turned the television on and was distracted by a little blurb on CNN. They were discussing tuberculosis, andit got me thinking about how one would diagnose/treat it in the absence of our current health care systems.

I decided this would be a good test for one of my birthday gifts from my amazon wishlist - a copy of this book. This is supposed to be a practical reference guide for female-oriented health problems. I picked it up and thumbed through it, and was distracted again by just how well-organized and useful the book is. It's cross-referenced in dozens of ways, it's written in plain language, and there are thousands (according to the cover, and flipping through it I certainly believe it) of simple explanatory drawings.

I picked a subject about which I know a few things to really test it out: pieces of placentas left in the womb after childbirth. This was a big issue for us when I worked at a large horse farm - after a birth, the placenta is expelled from the body (doesn't matter if it's a cat, a horse, or a human for the basics). You're supposed to carefully check it to see if it appears to be complete, and then weigh it for even more certainty, and then check the 'patient' over the next few hours/days to really confirm. This book covered all of that correctly, and even provided tables such that you'd know what it's *supposed* to weigh, and an illustration to show how to check the membrane for completeness. The next section was on how to tell if pieces had been retained - and then how to remove them in the absence of a real doctor/hospital. There was a point at which I saw the disappointing "if X is happening, see a doctor immediately." But then next to that was a page number. Flipping to that page, I saw "if there is no doctor, follow these steps." Simple instructions, illustrations, courses of treatments. A+ instructions. I could reasonably see someone who had no knowledge whatsoever of some of the techniques being able to figure it out using this book.

There are also sections on common, useful drugs, as well as little 'cheat sheets' on each one (and a simplistic, scaled down Material Safety Data Sheets) and details on how to give different types of injections. Again, complete with useful illustrations. There are even brief sections on psychological problems and crisis counselling. There are color-coded indices.

I am really impressed. If you don't have one of these, I highly recommend you get one. It's no substitute for real medical care, but I think it's an extremely useful reference, and would be good to have for any non-Monday-through-Friday-9-to-5 health questions.

Wonderful Update of the Where there is No Doctor Series
I thought this book was wonderful because it not only addresses women's health in the reproductive realm but it also addresses the realities of women's health in developing countries: injuries due to overwork, too many children, violence, malnutrition, and also addresses mental illnesses. It also has a great section on FGM, AIDS, Sexual Violence, and Commerical Sex Workers. It integrates gender issues with traditional women's health concerns. I am dying to know when it is coming out in Spanish so I can take it down to Guatemala with me.

Good general info
I brought this as a companion to "Where There is no Doctor" for a trip to Guatemala. Althought parts are very helpful, I tended to refer to the other book for concrete help. Excellent info of family planning, breast feeding which is a must for health care workers.