This paper examines the association between traditional practices of female genital cutting (FGC) and adult women's reproductive morbidity in rural Gambia. In 1999, we conducted a cross-sectional community survey of 1348 women aged 15-54 years, to estimate the prevalence of reproductive morbidity on the basis of women's reports, a gynaecological examination and laboratory analysis of specimens. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used to compare the prevalence of each morbidity between cut and uncut women adjusting for possible confounders. A total of 1157 women consented to gynaecological examination and 58% had signs of genital cutting. There was a high level of agreement between reported circumcision status and that found on examination (97% agreement). The majority of operations consisted of clitoridectomy and excision of the labia minora (WHO classification type II) and were performed between the ages of 4 and 7 years. The practice of genital cutting was highly associated with ethnic group for two of the three main ethnic groups, making the effects of ethnic group and cutting difficult to distinguish. Women who had undergone FGC had a significantly higher prevalence of bacterial vaginosis (BV) [adjusted odds ratio (OR)=1.66; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25-2.18] and a substantially higher prevalence of herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV2) [adjusted OR=4.71; 95% CI 3.46-6.42]. The higher prevalence of HSV2 suggests that cut women may be at increased risk of HIV infection. Commonly cited negative consequences of FGC such as damage to the perineum or anus, vulval tumours (such as Bartholin's cysts and excessive keloid formation), painful sex, infertility, prolapse and other reproductive tract infections (RTIs) were not significantly more common in cut women. The relationship between FGC and long-term reproductive morbidity remains unclear, especially in settings where type II cutting predominates. Efforts to eradicate the practice should incorporate a human rights approach rather than rely solely on the damaging health consequences.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 28. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 January 2026.
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Altmetric has tracked 31,959,560 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,292 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.1. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
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