Advances making women’s lives better

Margaret Nanyombi shows how the BVKit works. Internet Photo 

By Carolyne B. Atangaza

Women’s health is as complex as it is diverse. Some seemingly simple issues actually have an
irreversible impact while others are clearly critical to our well-being.

Women’s healthcare has come a long way. From that first rudimentary caesarian section operation, various technologies and treatments have since been discovered that make lives better. Here are a few advances in women’s healthcare worth celebrating.

The ticking clock
They said women could not have it all and this seemed true until scientists found a way to keep women fertile for much longer freezing their eggs.

Dr Herman Sewagudde, an OBGYN at Seven Hills doctors, in simple terms defines egg freezing as collecting a woman’s eggs, freezing them and thawing them later so they can be used in fertility treatment. A woman has less chances of conceiving naturally as she gets older because the quality and number of her eggs drops.

It is advisable to harvest the eggs when the woman is young and at their optimum quality. This treatment has become popular among career women who want to dedicate their early years to their careers and have children much later in life.

The process is also recommended for women who have a medical condition or need treatment for a medical condition that will affect their fertility, have high-risk jobs that easily cause injury or death (surrogate can carry the baby) or are yet to find the right partner.

Today, women have options to choose how they want to deliver their babies. Some women choose to have a natural birth while others choose the C-section and anesthesia.

Gone are the days of women going along with doing what they were told. Thanks to the easy availability of information, mothers know what they want and how they want it delivered without compromise. This shift in mentality has led to a patient centered birthing experience.
Physicians are happy to collaborate with the mother to give them services that meet their family’s wishes and needs.

Breast cancer treatment
Last year was an exciting time as far as breast cancer treatment advancement is concerned.
According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, two new drugs were found that could reduce the effects of breast cancer. It was discovered that adding the experimental drug tucatinib to a chemotherapy regimen consisting of the drugs trastuzumab and capecitabine could improve survival for adults with advanced HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

Another experimental drug conjugate called trastuzumab deruxtecan was able to substantially reduce tumour activity in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

“Both studies are evaluating new drugs for HER2-positive breast cancer, which represents about 15 per cent to 20 per cent of all breast cancers,” said Dr. Eric Winer, chief of the division of breast oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who was the senior author of the tucatinib study.

“It is the single area in breast cancer where we have made the most dramatic progress and continue to,” he said. “For individuals with advanced breast cancer, we can individualise therapy more than in the past; it is no longer one size fits all,” Dr Winer revealed.

Natural hair movement
We all know the chemicals and heat we constantly use on our hair are causing damage but we are not sure how bad it is. A study published in the International Journal of Cancer suggests that women using permanent hair dyes and chemical hair straighteners may be at a higher risk of developing breast cancer, compared to women who do not use these products.

Researchers also found a link between chemical hair straighteners such as keratin treatments and breast cancer. The study showed that using a chemical straightener was associated with an 18 per cent increased risk of breast cancer and the risk increased to 30 per cent for those who reported using a chemical straightener every five to eight weeks.

That is why the natural hair movement has been a welcome relief for most women looking for an option. The trend has shifted from a few years ago when relaxed hair was a sign of affluence to a more natural look for the well-off.

What makes the switch possible is the availability of quality products and skill. Charlyn Kentaro, the proprietor of Kentaro natural products, is one of the many entrepreneurs who were inspired to join the industry by the high demand. Kentaro started mixing butters in her parents’ kitchen after failing to find products that could work on her natural hair.

“The products on the market were either of poor quality or cost beyond my budget. I decided to look for products on the internet but they were extremely expensive so I did a bit of research on the popular products. Everyone was in love with this thing called Shea butter. I discovered that Uganda is one of the leading producers of Shea butter. Determined to find a lasting solution, I bought a bottle of peppermint essential oil added it to the whipped Shea butter and was pleasantly surprised by the result. It was smoother, had a good scent and was effective on my hair,” she saying adding that soon people started complementing her and she gladly shared hers.

She, however, continued doing research and saw how other people had embraced such ideas and benefited their communities.

Thanks to the efforts of so many enterprising Ugandans, most women have since gone back to their natural roots and are also able to manage their daughters’ hair without resorting to relaxers.

Reproductive health apps
In 2015, Margaret Nanyombi, together with three friends, invented the BVKit, which a woman can use to self-test for Bacterial Vaginosis (BV), a bacterium that increases the chances of contracting HIV, Chlamydia, Human Papillomavirus (HPV, which causes cervical cancer), and Gonorrhea.

Glow was created for women who are trying to understand their cycles and their fertility. It allows women using the app to connect with their partners so the two can share the experience, and collects information about a male partner’s fertility and health factors, too.

Clue is first and foremost a period tracker that helps women monitor and predict their monthly cycles as well as the emotional and physical symptoms associated with menstruation and ovulation.