Women's Health Index
Compiled by LLM
For VBAC and cesarean articles and links,
click
here. For Breastfeeding articles click
here.
* * * * *
General Health Issues
Death at 18
Spurs Debate Over a Pill for Abortion RU-486
kills a young woman when she attempted to terminate
her early pregnancy. Note that one of the drugs
in RU-486 is misoprostal, which is the induction
drug of choice for many doctors and midwives.
This also kills women, as well as babies. For
more please read The
Devil Cytotec.
My PCOS
Story Janis talks about life before diagnosis
of polycystic ovary syndrome, and the medical
mishaps involved in her treatment. What finally
made the difference of a lifetime for her was
consulting with the "alternative" health
and parenting community; a change that led to
the natural conception of her child and great
personal empowerment.
My Life with
Maternal PKU A mother of two writes about
living with this incredibly challenging condition.
Included: a bit about the PKU diet, how her PKU
affected her in pregnancy, and how changing medical
moods have cost families a great deal in terms
of money and personal pain.
Parental
Mortality Risk Increased After Death of a Child
Mothers whose children died within the last 18
years were 40% more likely to die than their peers.
Early
Abuse Tied with Depression Researchers have
seen that mammalian brains fail to develop properly
when infants are separated from their mothers,
or find later abuse.
Mothers
'get Alzheimer's boost' The brains of rats
who bear two litters of offspring change on a
biochemical level, enabling the mother to be more
creative in problem-solving, and- if the findings
are translated to deal with humans- ward off disabling
conditions of aging, like dementia and Alzheimer's.
Some
Interesting Stories from Yahoo! News
Women
are less likely than men to have rehabilitation
after a heart attack "Men with hypertension
are twice as likely as hypertensive women to have
rehabilitation treatment after an acute coronary
artery disease episode."
Learning vaginal examinations
"In every medical school, medical students
learnt VE's with anaesthetised women [for
more, go here].
In Newcastle in the 1980's the medical school
stopped the practice, and students learnt with
conscious women who were/are paid to teach the
students and give feedback about their manner,
communication style and technique. The students
had an informal discussion with the women before
the clinical practice session. The women explored
ideas about respect, privacy and VE's, speculums
and pap smears with the students. Sexual abuse
issues were also discussed. Following the discussion,
each woman took about six students and talked
each of them through as they practiced doing
vaginal examinations, both digitally and with
a speculum.
"I thought this was such a great way of
teaching students, I became an instructor. It
was an interesting time, as this was a very
new idea. There was a lot of negativity about
it, the nuns called it prostitution. I also
dislike pap smears and vaginal examinations
at the best of times, so a big commitment for
me. My attitude was that it was far better for
the students to practice on women (such as me)
who could actively teach them, than have it
happen to women without their consent or even
with their 'consent' obtained in vulnerable
situations.
"In situations with labouring women and
midwifery students, I always discussed/discuss
the idea of a vaginal examination with the women,
without the student being present- with the
woman in a standing or otherwise upright position-
positioning is so much part of the power dynamic.
If the women show the slightest hesitation,
I go no further with the discussion. I examine
first, telling both the student and the woman
what I can feel as I go and asking her for feedback.
Then, if the woman is still ok about it, the
student examines the woman and describes what
she/he feels as she/he goes. If the woman's
experience of my examination has been at all
painful, there is no student examination.
"It is a challenge with teaching students,
as it is very very rare that I find it necessary
to undertake a vaginal examination on a labouring
woman. The woman is also thanked very sincerely
for her generosity." -Carolyn Hastie
Body Image
- The Kate
Moss Effect on Depression Originally on
ABCNEWS.com, this article shows how harmful
it is for women's feelings of self worth when
they look at pictures of plasticy-thin, "perfect"
fashion models. Illuminated: how 17% of girls
aged 8-12 induce vomiting to lose weight, and
how the models we see in magazines sometimes
aren't even models at all- but composite images
taken from many models, and airbrushed to "perfection"!
- Women's
Health Issues: Body Image -from the Boston
Women's Health Collective, with lots of pertinent
links and wisdom.
Excerpted: "The number 1 'magic
wish' of girls 10-14 is to lose weight. In a
recent study of nearly 10,000 girls aged 8-12,
17% induced induced vomiting or used laxatives
or diet pills to lose weight. By the time girls
reach adolescence, eating disorders are the
third most common chronic illness afflicting
them."
Hysterectomy
The following is excerpted from Overcoming
the Dark Gods of Modern Medicine:
"It has been shown that 98% of hysterectomies
and castrations (the medical term for the removal
of the ovaries is castration) are not needed.
Some of the more shocking facts about hysterectomy/castration
from the Hysterectomy Educational Resources and
Services (HERS):
"FACT: Hysterectomy's damage is life-long.
Among its most common consequences, in addition
to operative injuries are:
- heart disease
- osteoporosis
- bone, joint and muscle pain and immobility
- loss of sexual desire, arousal, sensation
- painful intercourse, vaginal damage
- displacement of bladder, bowel, and other
pelvic organs
- urinary tract infections, frequency, incontinence
- chronic constipation and digestive disorders
- profound fatigue
- chronic exhaustion
- altered body odor
- loss of short-term memory
- blunting of emotions, personality changes,
despondency, irritability, anger, reclusiveness
and suicidal thinking
FACT: No drugs or other treatments can replace
ovarian or uterine hormones or functions. The
loss is permanent.
FACT: 98% of women HERS has referred to board-certified
gynecologists after being told they needed hysterectomies,
discovered that, in fact, they did not need
hysterectomies.
FACT: Gynecologists, hospitals and drug companies
make more than 8 billion dollars a year from
the business of hysterectomy and castration."
Find the full fact sheet- click
here."
Just
Take Them Out!*
By LLM.
Cesareans and hysterectomies hurt! A response
to a doctor who wrote a book about how great he
thinks they are.
Links:
- Hysterectomies:
A Psychological Perspective This is an interview
with the Elizabeth Plourde, the woman who wrote
"The Ultimate Rape: What Every Woman Should
Know about Hysterectomies and Ovarian Removal".
external link
- HERS
98% of hysterectomies and castrations (the medical
term for the removal of the ovaries is castration)
are not needed. Some of the more shocking facts
about hysterectomy/castration from the Hysterectomy
Educational Resources and Services can be found
here.
Urinary Stress Incontinence
More
Women in US Undergoing Surgery for Stress Incontinence
Almost 1 in 5 women will suffer compilations from
a surgery that is not proven definitively to be
a benefit; women of color are especially prone
to complications and bleeding.
Childbirth
May Not Cause Incontinence A study involving
nuns who have never given birth shows that vaginal
birth, so frequently blamed for urinary strress
incontinence by OBs, actually doesn't cause
incontinence; stress, history of UTIs (urinary
tract infections) and weight do.
Links:
Hormone Replacement Therpay
Hormone Therapy Causes
Dementia in Older Women
Women using hormone therapy for an average
of more than four years face double the risk
of developing Alzheimer's or other forms of
dementia; which is the opposite of what has
been thought to be the end result of hormone
therapy. "It's another nail in the coffin"
for the use of hormones during and after menopause,
said St. Louis gynecologist Dr. Robert Blaskiewicz,
a Saint Louis University professor. See the
following pages for more:
Diabetic
women who use HRT are at an increased risk of
death from all causes and heart disease
"Only now is the terrible damage of routinely
barraging menopausal women with equine hormones
being brought into the light. HRT has been found
to be causing women more harm than good; so much,
in fact, that the part of the study that compared
estrogen/progestin with placebo was stopped over
three years early due to the fact that too many
women were getting sick. How sick? Women were
getting breast cancer, coronary heart disease,
pulmonary embolism and stroke. The study went
as far as to suggest that not a single subgroup
benefited from HRT.
Premarin (conjugated estrogens extracted from
PREgnant MARes urINe) is the crutch of hormone
replacement therapy, and is the number two prescribed
drug in the US; in the year 2000, 46 million prescriptions
were written amounting to a profit of over 1 billion
dollars. One can only hope that women will walk
away from horse hormones and claim their crone
years as rites of powerful passage- instead of
profitable platform for evermore patriarchal manipulation.
Hormone Replacement Therapy does more harm than
good: go here
and here.
From a menopausal woman about HRT, and the women
of her generation:
"In case anyone is not aware, the news
broke today that the risks of hormone replacement
therapy with estrogen/progesterone for menopausal
women far outweigh the benefits. My question
is this: When will women ever learn?
I am 55 years old. I am the generation whose
mothers were told NOT to breastfeed. Most of
us had our tonsillectomies by 5 years old. Our
feet were measured for shoes in X-ray machines.
Our fathers put DDT on the garden religiously
and fed us the beautiful vegetables. We luckily
did not begin receiving vaccines until we were
about 10 years old. When we had our babies,
our perineums were surgically cut (routine episiotomy)
for our "benefit". As teenagers, we
were put on the first birth control pill (high
dose) and many women stayed on it for years
before the studies came out with the risks of
cancer, stroke, and heart disease. When I was
in my late 20s the cesarean epidemic began and
continues to this day "to save babies".
Many women of my generation had tubal ligations
which led to heavy periods (an important blood
vessel was severed) and this led to hysterectomy
and oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries- female
castration).
All of these malpractises of allopathic medicine
have been widely reported in the press and physicians
are very ashamed and sorry and now know better
about all these things. HOWEVER, it doesn't
change the fact that the general health of the
population and especially women has been severely
harmed.
I have not been to a physician for 15 years.
I had very heavy periods for about 4 years from
age 46-50 and I set up my life so that I could
rest more and I used herbs to relieve cramping.
I have "hot flashes" and I love them.
I am not embarrassed in the least to be a menopausal
woman. I love this stage of my life as much
as I loved menstruating and bearing children.
What else am I here on earth for in a woman's
body? I'm not broken and I don't need fixing.
Hot flashes, vaginal dryness and mood swings-
so what?
Maybe women in their 50's and 60's are SUPPOSED
to be cranky, passionate and outrageous. Maybe
if they were feeling those mood swings a little
more they'd march on those big pharmaceutical
firms that have made millions off their misery.
Wake up, women, allopathic medicine is making
you sicker." -Gloria Lemay, Vancouver,
BC
Breast Health
Also see: The
Breastfeeding Page
Elderly
women are being denied treatments for breast cancer
Women over 70 are dying when they shouldn't have
to be- they are denied treatment because it is
(erroneously) assumed they're "going to die
anyway". We must be vigilant for the care
of our mothers, grandmothers and friends.
Breast cancer
studies: No benefit to high-dose chemo An
aggressive treatment for breast cancer that uses
doses of chemotherapy so high that it destroys
the patient's bone marrow offers little or no
benefit over standard chemo, two studies show.
Breast Implants Tied to Suicide Risk Says
Heidi Splete of the Ob.Gyn.News:
"Women who have breast implants are significantly
more likely to commit suicide than women who do
not have implants, said Dr. V.C.M. Koot of University
Medical Centre in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and
associates. In a prospective study of 3,521 Swedish
women who had breast implants for cosmetic reasons
and were followed for an average of 11 years,
there were 85 deaths. A total of 15 of these 85
deaths (17.6%) deaths were attributable to suicide.
The expected number of suicides was only 5.2."
See this BMJ
link for more.
Lumpectomy
is as effective as mastectomy for breast cancer
Mammograms
Worthless Over Breast Exam Alone -says
the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
ABCNEWS
Report: Breast Cancer Study Based on Bogus Research
Women
who wear bras have a greater risk of breast cancer,
finds Ralph L. Reed, Ph.D.. Excerpted:
- Women who wore their bras 24 hours per day
had a 3 out of 4 chance of developing breast
cancer
- Women who wore bras more than 12 hour per
day but not to bed had a 1 out of 7 risk.
- Women who wore their bras less than 12 hours
per day had a 1 out of 152 risk.
- Women who wore bras rarely or never had a
1 out of 168 chance of getting breast cancer.
The overall difference between 24 hour wearing
and not at all was a 125-fold difference.
Menopause
Menopause
Not Linked to Decline in Cognitive Functioning
-a study finds that women's minds actually improve
with age. (We knew that.)
Links of Value
- Women's
Health Initiative
- Rising
Daughters Aware -information and links about
female genital mutilation (FGM).
- Bloodsisters
A site about claiming "femmestruation"
as our power, never our curse. AMAZING links;
a must-visit site.
- Hipmama
Thought-provoking articles, lots of humor and
great links. Chat rooms.
- Mary Daly wrote the ultimate book on
radical, beautiful, powerful feminism: "Gyn/Ecology".
- BettyDodson.com
A sexuality site with some useful articles and
links. Betty's focus is on women feeling proud
of their sexuality.
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