[Disabled women's accessibility to obstetric and gynecological services--it's a long and hard track]

Disabled women constitute a significant part of the general female population and this prevalence increases with age. These women need equal obstetric and gynecological services, the same as their healthy counterparts. Yet, their accessibility to these services is often prevented by environmental, information, attitude and economical barriers. In this article, the nature of these barriers is discussed. In addition, obstetricians/gynecologists often lack the appropriate expertise to treat disabled patients with specific limitations. In this review, we discuss several issues throughout the woman's life cycle in which obstetric/gynecological care is required. Medical organizations in Israel need to invest more in dissemination of information and in improving infrastructure, equipment and trained staff, in order to provide better medical care for this unique population.