ArchivedMuhammads Youngest Wife ... UNICEF: Child marriages must stop
Pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of mortality for 15-19 year-old girls (married and unmarried) worldwide. Mothers in this age group face a 20 to 200 per cent greater chance of dying in pregnancy than a women age 20 to 24. Those under age 15 are five times as likely to die as women in their twenties.. The main causes are haemorrahage, sepsis, pre-eclampsia/eclampsia and obstructed labour. . . .However, physical immaturity is the key risk for under 15s. High rates of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula (VVF) are clearly identified with marriage and childbearing in the 10-15 year-old age group; in one study in Niger, 88 per cent of women with fistula were in this age group at marriage. Mothers whose pelvis and birth canal are not fully developed often endure very prolonged labour. Unless the mother receives emergency obstetric care, relentless pressure from the baby’s skull can damage the birth canal, causing breakages in the wall, allowing uncontrollable leakage from the bladder into the vagina. The same problem may also occur in relation to the rectum, with leakage of faeces (recto-vaginal fistulas, or RVF) . . . . source -- http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications ... gest7e.pdf
Lady Fatima, the scientific evidence -- that marrying at an early age is medically and psychologically devastating to the young mother and baby -- is overwhelming. I can find literally hundreds of medical papers pointing out the devastating effect that a young marriage has on a girl. UNICEF has taken a formal position of setting the age of marriage at 18 based on medical evidence gathered from around the world.
Question – If you can find one medical paper that advocates early childhood marriage (9-15), I will be glad to help you analyze that paper. I recommend using medline at http://www4.infotrieve.com/newmedline/adv_search.asp or http://www4.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/
From the Farside
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