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Over
80 percent of all American women have had a child by the age
of 45. The average woman has 2.2 children.
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64
percent of women ages 15 to 44 use some form of contraception,
up from 56 percent in 1982.
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Younger
women are particularly at risk for reproductive health problems
associated with sexually transmitted diseases. Two-thirds of
all STD cases occur among individuals younger than 25 years,
and 1 in 4 teenagers contracts an STD each year.
Source:
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/stdinfo.htm
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From
1987 to 1994, the rate of unintended pregnancy dropped 16 percent,
due most likely to increased contraceptive use and improved
effectiveness of contraceptive methods. Nonetheless, 49 percent
of pregnancies in 1994 were unintended, and nearly half of all
women who experienced an unplanned pregnancy in 1994 had been
using some form of contraception.
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Birth
rates during 1991-1996 declined for teenagers in all racial
and ethnic groups.
Source:
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/teen.htm
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The
most commonly used contraceptive is female sterilization (18%
of women), followed by oral contraceptives (17% of women).
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More
than one third of women in the United States, about 36 million,
have been through menopause. With a life expectancy of about
81 years, a 50-year-old-woman can expect to live more than one
third of her life after menopause. While many older women mistakenly
believe that regular gynecological exams are no longer necessary,
this is precisely the point in life when they are at higher
risk for cancers of the reproductive system, and other gynecological
problems such as uterine prolapse.
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In
2000, 702,093 chlamydial infections were reported to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention from 50 states and the District
of Columbia. This corresponds to a rate of 257.5 cases per 100,000
persons, an increase of 2.3% compared with the rate of 251.6
in 1999. The reported number of chlamydial infections was approximately
twice the number of reported cases of gonorrhea (358,995 gonorrhea
cases were reported in 2000).
Source:
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/2000Chlamydia.htm
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Chlamydia
is the most common bacterial sexually transmitted disease in
the United States. It causes an estimated 4 million infections
annually, primarily among adolescents and young adults. Without
treatment, 20-40 percent of women with chlamydia may develop
pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). An estimated 1 in 10 adolescent
girls and 1 in 20 women of reproductive age are infected with
chlamydia.
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By
age 30, 50 percent of sexually active women probably have had
chlamydia.
Source:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/dstdp.html
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/stds.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/Stats_Trends/Trends2000.pdf
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More
than 4.5 million women ages 18 to 50 report at least one chronic
gynecological condition each year.
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It's
estimated that 30 percent to 40 percent of women have premenstrual
syndrome (PMS) symptoms severe enough to impair their daily
activities. About 7 percent have a form of PMS so disabling
that it has its own psychiatric designation - premenstrual dysphoric
disorder.
Source:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/findinformation/diseasesandconditions/invoke.cfm?id=DS00134
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It
is estimated that between 10 and 20 percent of American women
of childbearing age have endometriosis, which can cause chronic
pain and infertility.
Source:
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/endomet.htm
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The
prevalence of endometriosis has been reported to be about five
percent of the female population of reproductive age. However,
in women with severe menstrual cramps, the incidence of endometriosis
has been reported to be between 25 and 35 percent.
Source:
http://www.bioscience.org/books/endomet/end01-33.htm#2
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Between
10 and 20 percent of women have uterine fibroids (non-cancerous
growths in the uterus). Some estimates of the percent of reproductive
age women with fibroids are higher. The vast majority of fibroids
occur in women of reproductive age, and according to some estimates,
they are diagnosed in black women two to three times more frequently
than in white women.
Source:
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/uterine.htm
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Hysterectomy
is the second most common major surgery that women in the United
States have. (The most common major surgery that women have
is cesarean section delivery.) Each year, more than 600,000
hysterectomies are done. About one third of women in the United
States have had a hysterectomy by age 60.
Source:
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/drh/wh_hysterec.htm
http://www.ahrq.gov/research/hysterec.htm
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Together,
endometriosis and fibroids are associated with half of the more
than 600,000 hysterectomies performed in the United States each
year.
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Although
the number of hysterectomies has been declining since 1987,
this operation remains the second most frequently performed
surgery in the U.S.; only cesarean section is performed more
frequently. Fibroids remain the number-one reason for hysterectomy
with 150,000 to 175,000 operations carried out each year because
of fibroids.
Source:
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/uterine.htm
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Infertility
affected 6.1 million people in 1997 (about ten percent of the
reproductive age population), up from 4.6 million in 1988 --
an increase due in part to delayed childbearing and the aging
of the baby boom generation. The causes of infertility are equally
distributed among conditions affecting the man, conditions affecting
the woman, and conditions affecting both partners.
Source:
http://www.asrm.org/Patients/faqs.html
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Approximately
1 in 4 infertile couples are unable to conceive as a result
of sexually transmitted diseases.
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At
least 15 percent of all infertile American women are infertile
because of tubal damage caused by pelvic inflammatory disease
(PID), the result of an untreated STD. Most PID is caused by
chlamydia infections, followed by gonorrhea infections.
Source:
http://www.ashastd.org/stdfaqs/statistics.html
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In
1997, over 82.5 percent of all pregnant women received prenatal
care in the first trimester of pregnancy -- reflecting a steady
improvement since 1970. 3.9 percent of pregnant woman received
prenatal care only in their third trimester or not at all.
Source:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/prenatal.htm
