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Query: UMLS:C0018681 (headache)
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Amenorrhea gravely affects the psychic life and profoundly changes the behavior of Rwandan women. Women with primary amenorrhea (failure to menstruate at puberty) who have well-developed secondary sexual characteristics go to traditional healers who have sexual intercourse with them, spreading sexually transmitted diseases, to open the way for the menstrual flow. Women with primary amenorrhea and no breasts (dwarfism and infantilism) are sad, cannot have children, and are considered inferior by society. According to Rwandan beliefs, menstrual bleeding of unmarried women with secondary amenorrhea (absence of menstruation after it has once been established) empties itself into an obscure cavity, causing lumbar pain, nervous tension, and headaches. Rwandan women explain postpartum or lactational amenorrhea as a latent pregnancy causing a psychological shock which mimics a miscarriage. Living together for three months without a pregnancy causes the menstrual cycle to lengthen alternating with regular excessive bleeding (a miscarriage threat). This constitutes amenorrhea of infertile women, according to Rwandan beliefs. Menopausal women live in an illusion of pregnancy. After two years of pregnancy, the menopausal woman worries about the delivery of her fetus transformed into rock and expresses her concerns at a gynecologic visit. She worries about her long and painful tragic death which follows the death of the fetus. All these different types of amenorrhea have two types of effect on Rwandan women's behavior: happy effects and troubling effects. Management of these amenorrheas must be preoccupied with the etiologic problem and the problem of latent pregnancy. The most frequent complaints associated with latent pregnancy are genital bleeding, past-due delivery, reduction of the frequency and amplitude of fetal movements, reduction of the volume of the abdomen, and prolonged labor.
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PMID:[The influence of amenorrhea on the behavior of Rwandan women]. 1231 59