Many many years ago, when I was but a young thing, Dr Jack Cohen, the
noted reproductive biologist, who regularly talks at sf cons and other
fan type meets, regaled us all with stories of how we as women, didn't
know how our bodies worked and how we didn't question enough (he never
did this in a negative way). His point was exactly about how as
females, we were unaware that it was more dangerous to come on and off
the pill every month, than it was to stay on it continuously. How we
sat in biology classes, with illustrations of the vagina as an 'opening'
like a tunnel - wide and full of air - and yet we sat on seats with
closed legs as we read looked at those illustrations, and had no
'opening' to speak of, just warm flesh touching warm flesh. How we
could accept statements about who we were, and how we worked, from
people who couldn't even draw accurately.
His point was very much that menstruation was a rare thing, with most
women only doing it every now and then, as pregnancy and breastfeeding
spaced it out for years at a time. He'd read up on some female hunters
in some tribes who hunted whilst menstruating (can't remember the exact
details) , and about how they'd learned to cope with having menstruation
whilst hunting, including a famed female huntress who had labia that
would close over in a cup and retain bleeding until she washed in the
evening (that one always fascinated me). But the point was very clear:
it was not part of the normal biology of the female to menstruate every
month for most of their adult life and it caused all sorts of health
issues - not least of all the emotional and psychological problems
associated with what we then called PMT and now call PMS.
He also explained that the reason why we come off the pill every month,
in order to menstruate, is that the physicians at the time of the
original pill development, complained that lack of periods every month
would psychologically scar all women and was a therefore a serious
threat to mental health. So it went into stone that you had to come off
it every three weeks to allow menstruation, which was a far greater risk
to actual physical health. I did try to argue this with my GP, who was
having none of it, and carefully regulated my supply of tablets to stop
me doing this 'dangerous' thing.
And whilst we are on this subject, can someone please explain to me why
it hurts to breastfeed during ovulation? Is it the same as why it hurts
to nurse during pregnancy, or something different? (And yes, is there
anything that can stop the pain!)
Morgan Gallagher
> Here's a couple of links I found relating to menstruation & cancer. I found it
> interesting to read in the first article that when the birth control pill was
> being developed, they originally were intending to orchestrate it so that women
> only had one or two periods a year but changed it to a monthly cycle b/c women
> would see that as more "normal" and be more accepting of the pill. So the
> makers of the pill clearly had the right idea that we shouldn't have periods so
> often but unfortunately that's now how it worked out in the end.
>
> http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/fact_060309_menstruation
>
> http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/14/4/799
>
> There are tons of links but I just don't have time to go through them all and
> find the most relevant/scientific ones to post here.
>
> --
> Margo
>
***********************************************
Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
Mail all commands to [log in to unmask]
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask])
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
|