The Healthy Village

Most women will experience menopause once they start to enter their older years. However, it is important to understand what the perimenopause symptoms are, so you can talk to your doctor about what you are going through. Your doctor may also be able to help you ease your symptoms through effective medical treatments.

Perimenopause, which is also called premenopause, can start many years before you even experience menopause. Premenopause affects many women while they are still menstruating and it can have many negative effects on their quality of life.

As you age, your hormones start go out of balance. During this time, you will enter perimenopause. The main hormone that becomes depleted is estrogen, which is highly important for the reproductive process to occur.

You will most likely notice changes in your periods first. For example, they may not start and end at the same frequency. They may also become lighter or heavier. You may also have hot flashes, which are sudden changes in your body temperature, and you may even have mild to severe insomnia.

A number of women who experience premenopause may be misdiagnosed as being depressed. This is because the hormonal changes can affect your mood and your emotions. You might even find that your attention span has decreased and that you are having trouble remembering things. Other issues include vaginal dryness, increased facial hair, thinning hair, and weight gain.

There are now quite a few treatments available for women who are going through premenopause. You can try changing your diet and exercise, since healthier lifestyles do impact your hormones. You can also try hormone therapy.

If you think that you might be having premenopausal symptoms, you should visit with your doctor to discuss your issues. A hormone test may need to be taken in order to confirm your suspicions and you will then be placed on a suitable treatment plan for you.

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DHA supplements ought to be something to consider when pregnant. DHA, or Docosahexaenoic acid, belongs to the very important omega-3 fatty acids. One question a growing number of expectant mothers have is if they really should be supplementing DHA. Unfortunately, the jury is out on this issue. You won’t notice any clear cut guidelines. With that said, let’s take a closer look at DHA and pregnancy.

There are lots of acids in polyunsaturated fats, both omega-6’s and omega-3’s, which everybody needs to get a nutritious diet. The issue is do women that are pregnant need more than we normally get in your diet. These acids are certainly not routinely obtained in pregnancy vitamins. These acids are composed of plant material, although in our diets we usually get them from animals, free-range cattle, chickens, and also cold water fish. That’s because when these animals eat they store higher and better concentrations of omega-6 and omega-3 efas.

Your baby’s brain growth is at its peak in the third trimester on your pregnancy. DHA is important when it concerns brain function, since it’s the most prevalent omega-3 essential fatty acid in the brain. However, there’s a sort of trade-off between omega-6’s and omega-3’s in one’s diet. More of one translates to diminished amount of another.

Although there is still some uncertainty regarding the importance of omega-3’s and especially DHA in a baby’s development, there does seem like a correlation between preterm birth, preclampsia, and hypertension in birth and lack of omega-3’s with the mother’s diet.

It’s particularly significant that you should talk to your doctor before you start taking DHA supplements while being pregnant. You don’t want to do anything to harm your baby’s health, and letting a family doctor find out what supplements you’re taking is often a key element to prenatal care. Although no one has got the complete response to whether or not it is best to take DHA while pregnant, this might be something you would like to explore.

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• Don’t take calcium supplements. Calcium makes bones more massive, but more brittle. A stout dry branch breaks easily, while a green one, no matter how thin, won’t break at all. Food sources of bone-building minerals (such as yogurt, nettle infusion, dandelion vinegar, and cooked kale) include “flexibility” minerals such as magnesium, boron, and zinc and are a superior way to prevent bone breaks later in life.

• Gain some weight. Women who gain 10-15 pounds during their menopausal years have fewer hot flashes, stronger bones, and healthier hearts. (And most of them lose the extra weight in the following decade.)

• Try herbal hormones. Many common herbs and foods contain substances that can be used like estrogens by the body. This is much safer than taking estrogen supplements, which are known to promote uterine and breast cancers.

• Be outrageous. The emotional extremes – rage, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts – that give menopausal women the label “hysterical”, actually serve important functions in helping women come to terms with aging, death and profound personal growth.

Bursting with tidbits of detailed information such as these, and rich with the forgotten wisdom of ancient times, NEW Menopausal Years The Wise Woman Way is the perfect guide for menopausal women of today.

Susun Weed
PO Box 64
Woodstock, NY 12498
Fax: 1-845-246-8081

Visit Susun Weed at: www.susunweed.com and www.ashtreepublishing.com

For permission to reprint this article, contact us at: susunweed@herbshealing.com

Vibrant, passionate, and involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international reputation for her groundbreaking lectures, teachings, and writings on health and nutrition. She challenges conventional medical approaches with humor, insight, and her vast encyclopedic knowledge of herbal medicine. Unabashedly pro-woman, her animated and enthusiastic lectures are engaging and often profoundly provocative.

Susun is one of America’s best-known authorities on herbal medicine and natural approaches to women’s health. Her four best-selling books are recommended by expert herbalists and well-known physicians and are used and cherished by millions of women around the world.

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Hey Congratulations you’ve found out your having a baby –What Now!

You’ve heard all the things your friends and family have told about what to expect, Morning sickness, weight gain, pain, swelling Back aches, tiredness need I continue!

But hey there is a plus side to this- the miraculous body transformations altering every system in your body- and with that does come different aches /pains,
SO if you haven’t had a massage before now is a PERFECT time to start! Not only will you benefit from a massage but your little growing life inside you will also.

Bodywork (massage) will ease your pregnant body as it transides through each changing trimester, Improving maternal and infant health in a myriad of ways.

–Eases muscular aches/discomforts
–reduces stress
–Aids in digestion
–enhances blood and lymph circulation
–promotes body and mind awareness
Pregnancy massage will also prepare mother for labour/birth.
Support lactation and can assist in any postpartum depression.

FIRST TRIMESTER MASSAGE
In the first trimester the client is able to lye on her stomach
(obviously if nipple pain is to server) on her side or back.
Deep Pressure points are to be avoided in first trimester,
Long relaxing strokes are great.

SECOND TRIMESTER MASSAGE
In the second trimester the lady may not be able to lay on her stomach so side laying or a pregnancy table is preferred.
From week 13 onwards a small pillow should be placed under her right hip this tilts the pelvis to the left and shifts the uterus off the inferior vena carva (a vein) and facilitating the return of blood to the heart.

THIRD TRIMESTER MASSAGE
After the sixth month of pregnancy the unborn can sense massage of the abdomen and responses to the touch, pregnant women can do their own bellies daily not only when her belly begins to grow but as so as she finds out she is pregnant, moisturizing cream as this is soothing and bonding (great to help with stretch marks) she may even notice her unborn responding to her touch.

The latter stages of pregnancy massage can assist in swollen legs feet, assist lumbar pain /discomfort and help prepare the body for labour and childbirth, plus general feeling of relaxation.

Once the women begins labour, massage can be helpful, the father to be ,can assist in this , circular motions on her lower back can help labour pains, whether she is laying on her side or sitting in chair or bath/shower. This will aid in comfort and reassurance and help him to feel useful.

Massage during labour can assist in reducing anxiety and stress which can stall labour and help replace it with endorphins which will facilitate a healthy labour.

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Tracy, the owner of Knots Corner is a qualified Massage Therapist, who is visited by a great number of clients with a wide range of reasons for a massage, from relaxation to muscular repair, headache relief to everyday stresses. Massage Brisbane

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Women find their own breast cancers most of the time (90% of the time according to one English study).

Monthly breast self-exam (or breast self-massage) provides early detection at lower cost, with no danger – and more pleasure – than yearly screening mammograms.

Most breast cancers (80%) are slow growing, taking between 42 and 300 days to double in size. A yearly mammogram could find these cancers 8-16 months before they could be felt, but this “early detection” does little to improve the already excellent longevity of women with slow-growing, non-metastasized breast cancers.

The 20% of breast cancers that are fast growing are the trouble-makers. They can double in size in 21 days. Monthly breast self-exams are much more likely to find these aggressive cancers than are yearly mammograms. (A 21-day doubling cancer will be visible on a mammogram only six weeks before it can be felt.) If you massage or examine your breasts even six times a year, you can take action on fast-growing lumps. If you rely on mammograms exclusively, the cancer could grow undetected for months.

In a recent look at 60,000 breast cancer diagnoses in the United States, 67% were found by the woman or her doctor – and over half of these were not visible on a mammogram – while 33% were discovered by mammogram. (This may seem like a substantial number of cancers found by mammography, but the majority of them were in situ cancers, a controversial type of cancer that may – but often does not – progress to invasive cancer.)

Green blessings!

———————–

Susun Weed
PO Box 64
Woodstock, NY 12498

www.susunweed.com

www.ashtreepublishing.com

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All mammograms are x-rays

A mammogram uses radioactive rays to “see” breast tissues. X-rays are known to cause DNA damage in breast cells.

A diagnostic mammogram is used when a woman or her practitioner feels a lump and wants to see it. (Sonograms – a non-radioactive test – can be used instead.) Most diagnostic mammograms are not one x-ray, but a series of x-rays.

A screening mammogram is done on a healthy woman to determine if there are unsuspected signs of cancer, such as a shadow or micro-calcifications. A screening mammogram is not one x-ray, but a series of x-rays, usually two per breast, four in all.

Mammograms distract us from the need for societal commitment to true prevention

Many of the cancers found by mammographic screening are in situ cancers. Women with in situ cancers rarely die from them. With or without early detection and treatment, 93% survive more than five years. When in situ breast cancers are found by mammogram, treated, and added to the statistical base, breast cancer cure rates and longevity statistics improve. No wonder mammography is praised. It has done what decades of research into cures for breast cancer have failed to do: make it appear that there is some progress in stemming the tide of breast cancer. But finding and treating an ever-increasing number of breast cancers isn’t real progress; committing to reducing chemical and radioactive pollution is.

Yearly screening mammograms aren’t cost effective to society nor are they safe environmentally

The Southern Medical Journal reports that the cost effectiveness (defined as the number of dollars spent so one person can live one year longer) of mammograms for women under 55 is $82,000. A recent analysis found that it cost $195,000 to detect one breast cancer using screening mammograms.
Dr. Charles Wright of Vancouver General Hospital estimates that the cost of saving one life by mass screening is $1.25 million (Canadian).

The mammography industry could gross $1 billion per year if every woman aged 40-49 was screened yearly. Less than 10% of all breast cancers occur in women that age.

Choosing screening mammograms means I choose to contribute to the stream of low-level radioactive waste leaving hospitals. Will my mammogram increase my daughter’s risk of developing breast cancer by increasing the amount of radioactivity in her environment? What is the real cost of this choice?

Green Blessings.

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Visit Susun Weed at: www.susunweed.com and www.ashtreepublishing.com

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