Health Consequences
Breast ironing is extremely painful and can cause tissue damage. There have been no medical studies on its effects. However, medical experts warn it might contribute toward breast cancer, cysts and depression, and perhaps interfere with breastfeeding later. Other possible side-effects reported by GIZ include breast infections, the formation of abscesses, malformed breasts and the eradication of one or both breasts. The practice ranges dramatically in its severity, from using heated leaves to press and massage the breasts, to using a scalding grinding stone to crush the budding gland. Due to the range of this activity, health consequences vary from benign to acute.
Read more about this topic: Breast Ironing
Famous quotes containing the words health and/or consequences:
“As they move into sharing parenting, men often are apprentices to women because they are not yet as skilled in child care. Mothers have to be willing to teach fathers—both by stepping in and showing and by stepping back and letting them learn.”
—Nancy Press Hawley. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 6 (1978)
“There is not much that even the most socially responsible scientists can do as individuals, or even as a group, about the social consequences of their activities.”
—Eric J. Hobsbawm (b. 1917)