Reproductive health experts in the country have attributed the increase in cases of women with endometriosis to having fewer children as well as infrequency to conceive.
Endometriosis is a health condition where abnormal tissues align themselves in a woman’s reproductive organs, causing them extreme pain, especially during menses, and consequent infertility.
Speaking on Friday at a symposium for the medics held at a Nairobi hotel, Wanyoike Gichuhi, a senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi, urged women to conceive more, stating that the pre-existing theory that endometriosis did not affect African women, had some truth to it.
He noted that African women had early marriages hence started bearing children while young.
"If you have many children, you will either be breastfeeding or pregnant and in such a case, endometriosis cannot thrive," he stated.
He explained that during such periods, women had progesterone hormone at a high level (which is responsible for birth control hence no menses) while endometriosis is estrogen-dependent.
According to Dr Yamal Patel, the tissues in a woman’s reproductive health organ will have no room if the woman conceived frequently.
“When you have 14 children in a row as our mothers did in the past, there is no room for menses, hence no endometriosis,” he noted.
Kireki Omanwa, a fertility expert from Kenya Obstetrics and Gynaecologists Society (Kogs) echoed the push for more children, stating that treating endometriosis is usually torturous and at times tampers with the ovaries, especially if they land in the hands of a not-so-experienced doctor.
According to the 2016 World Bank report, Kenya currently has the lowest fertility rate in the region of three children compared to eight some 20 years ago.
