FGM involves partial or total removal of the clitoris or other external genitalia, and is a well-established tradition several African countries.
According to a report by AFP, Researchers from the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) analyzed a group of 28,373 who gave birth to a single baby between 2001 and 2003 at 28 hospitals in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan.
Three-quarters of these women had had genital mutilation to varying degrees.
The survey found that the mutilated women were up to 31 percent likelier to have a cesarean delivery, 66 percent likelier to have a baby that needed resuscitation and 55 percent likelier to have a child who died before or after birth, compared to non-mutilated women.
In the countries that were monitored, the study found that the national rate of perinatal death ranges between four and six per 100 deliveries as compared to five and seven deaths per hundred in mutilated women.
