About this Book
This book was written to help women care for their own health, and to help
community health workers or others meet women’s health needs. We have tried to
include information that will be useful for those with no formal training in health care
skills, and for those who do have some training.
Although this book covers a wide range of women’s health problems, it does not
cover many problems that commonly affect both women and men, such as malaria,
parasites, intestinal problems, and other diseases. For information on these kinds of
problems, see Where There Is No Doctor or another general medical book.
Sometimes the information in this book will not be enough to enable you to solve
a health problem. When this happens, get more help. Depending on the problem, we
may suggest that you:
• see a health worker. This means that a trained health
worker should be able to help you solve the problem.
• get medical help. This means you need to go to a
clinic that has trained medical people or a doctor, or a
laboratory where basic tests are done.
If you need to get help
immediately, this picture
will also appear.
• go to a hospital. This means you need to see a doctor
at a hospital that is equipped for emergencies, for
surgery, or for special tests.
Transport!
How to Use this Book
Finding information in the book
To find a topic you want to know about, you can use either the list of Contents or
the Index.
The Contents, at the front of the book, lists the chapters in the order in which they
appear. There is also a list of contents at the beginning of every chapter. Each topic on
this list appears on the numbered page listed as a large heading (words in big, dark letters).
The Index, or Yellow Pages at the back of the book, lists all the important topics
covered in the book, in the order of the alphabet (a, b, c, d...).
To find information about the medicines used in this book, look in the Green Pages
toward the back of the book. Page 485 gives more information about using medicines
and the Green Pages.
If you do not understand the meanings of some of the words used in this book, you may
find them in the List of Difficult Words that starts on page 548. The first time these
words appear in a chapter, they are printed in slanted letters, like this. You can also look
up the word in the index to see if it is explained in another part of the book.
Many chapters end with a section called ‘Working for Change’. These sections give
suggestions for working to improve women’s health in your community.
Where Women Have No Doctor 2012