2012-06-12 HealthDay News - Procedure Might Ease Pain of FGM

[Minuteman]

http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/new...x?Docid=665606 Accessed: 2012-06-12. Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/68NctFCiD

Excerpt:

Most victims also able to experience sexual pleasure following the reconstructive surgery.

Reconstructive surgery may help ease the pain of women who have suffered female genital mutilation, a new study finds.

Female genital mutilation, or FGM, "includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs" for cultural or non-medical reasons, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO declares that female genital mutilation "is a violation of the human rights of girls and women."

In the new study, published online June 11 in The Lancet, researchers from France found that a new surgical technique could allow women who have been subjected to this type of mutilation to experience sexual pleasure. They noted, however, reconstructive surgery is often not an option for women who have had their external female genitalia (such as the clitoris) partially or totally removed.

"Our findings show that clitoral reconstruction after FGM is feasible. It can certainly improve women's pleasure and lessen their pain. It also allows mutilated women to recover their identity," the inventor of the surgical technique, Pierre Foldes from Poissy Saint Germain Hospital, explained in a journal news release.