How does Sickle Cell Disorder affect women in particular?
Women sufferers may feel that they experience stigma regarding their Sickle Cell Disorder as they are not fulfilling societal expectations of femininity and motherhood. For example, women sufferers are often seen in jumpers and coats in the summer rather than more seasonal or fashionable clothes, as despite the weather it is still hard for sufferers to get warm.
Many women sufferers are unable to carry out household chores and parent duties due to the intense pain, chronic fatigue that they suffer rendering them unable to play with their children as any mother would wish.
Period pain can be severe in women with Sickle Cell Disorder, and women sufferers can be hospitalised, as the pain can cause a sickle cell crisis.
Women with sickle cell disorder are at a high risk of complications in pregnancies e.g. crises happening more often, complications during childbirth etc. Women sufferers are also likely to have C-section births, as for some sufferers a “normal” birth is not an option.
All of this exacerbates the psychological issues that anyone with Sickle Cell Disorder already faces.