Month: October 2007

What to eat when you’re eating for two

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Some new research and tools from the Department of Agriculture just came out for pregnant women, to help them gauge what they should be eating, and what kind of weight gain they should shoot for. You can see the tool here, which asks for information like age, height, weight and due date to calculate what the caloric breakdown should be.

Pregnancy nutrition is not a new topic–doctors have been telling women how to eat, and particularly what not to eat during pregnancy for a really long time. The famous What to Expect When You’re Expecting book even has a counterpart, What to Eat When You’re Expecting.

What strikes me about a lot of this information is how much it focuses on what NOT to eat. Pregnant women have endless lists of forbidden foods. One site I found had a long list of things on its forbidden list:

  • Sushi, raw fish, undercooked foods, Swordfish, shark, king mackerel, tilefish, and fresh (as well as canned albacore) tuna; raw sushi and raw shellfish; refrigerated smoked seafood such as lox, trout, and whitefish (unless cooked as an ingredient in another dish).
  • Raw milk and any dairy product (cheese, yogurt) made with raw milk; soft cheeses such as Brie, Camembert, feta, Danish blue, Roquefort, and Mexican-style queso blanco and queso fresco (unless clearly marked as pasteurized); uncooked foods made with raw eggs (such as salad dressings and protein shakes).
  • Teas made with goldenseal, black or blue cohosh, ephedra, dong quai, feverfew, juniper, pennyroyal, Saint-John’s-wort, rosemary, or thuja. Drinking lots of nutritionally void diet drinks instead of healthier ones like water or juice.
  • Then of course there is NO alcohol, nicotine or caffeine.

Many women even have to go off important medications that they take for their own well being. It’s a complicated issue, and pregnant women obviously have to take into account the well being of the fetus they are carrying. But how much is too much? Are we overreacting about the effect that small amounts of these foods can really have on pregnant women and their fetuses?

I have read some interesting things about alcohol and pregnancy, and how the research is really not conclusive that small amounts of alcohol during pregnancy actually have negative effects. Most of what we know comes from alcoholic pregnant women and the effects on their children. Part of the problem is that we can’t do good research on pregnant women–there are all sorts of rules governing the ethics of medical trials on pregnant women (maybe for some good reasons).

But it means that we don’t really know for sure what kind of impact certain foods, drugs and treatments have on women and their children. So doctors instead try to make recommendations based on anecdotal cases, what the research we do have says, and their best guess. The same thing goes for a lot of medicines and interventions used during childbirth. It’s kind of scary when you think about it.

My piece about abortion doulas

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Just wanted to share the link to a piece I just wrote for RH Reality Check about abortion doulas, particularly the Birth Sisters at Boston Medical Center and their attempts to expand their doula services to women having abortions. It’s called Mi Compañera.

A new book about Choice

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True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion

Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion (Paperback) by Karen E. Bender (Editor), Nina De Gramont (Editor)

I went to Bluestockings last week to hear from the two editors and one contributor to this new book called Choice. It originally intrigued me because I thought it might be a broader take on what the term choice means for people in the United States. While I haven’t read the whole book yet, from the three contributions read last week and the editors remarks, it expands the concept of choice, but not as far as I would have liked. As a young queer woman, I didn’t feel particularly reflected or included in their stories, and from scanning the titles of the other essays, and looking at the biographies of the other contributors, didn’t feel compelled to keep reading.

While I think the book itself provides some interesting, thoughtful and well-written perspectives on what choice can mean for women, it misses an opportunity to really provide something new. I feel disappointed by these kind of publications frequently, and maybe that’s because of who is able to access publishers and agents, and who is in their circle of writers. It’s difficult for new writers (or even people who wouldn’t consider themselves writers, but have amazing things to say) to get publishedor included in these types of manuscripts.

I obviously need to read the rest of the selections to really be able to give my opinion, but in the meantime, you can check out this (kind of scathing) review of the book at SFGate.

For more from one of the editor, check out Karen Bender’s article at Huffington Post.

What do doulas and the Red Sox have in common?

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One man’s hilarious (although mildly misogynist) tale of his wife’s due date and Game 5 of the series falling on the same day. Entitled Oh baby, what’s a Sox fan to do, the author recounts both his wife’s developing pregnancy and the Red Sox’s path toward winning a spot in the World Series. I have to admit, it was an entertaining perspective (I don’t read a lot about birth from the male point of view) although there was a lot of Red Sox and baseball jargon that flew over my head, as well as a few jokes that were a bit much.

But they did have a doula, and now a bunch of readers on Fox Sports might hear about them too. I’m all for reaching out to new audiences.

Belated celebration: Menopause Awareness Month

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So, I missed the ball on this one, by about a month. September was Menopause Awareness Month (along with Latino Heritage Month, among others) but I figured I was still within a reasonable window to talk about this.

Menopause is another issue that does not get enough attention in the women’s health/reproductive rights movement. Working for an organization that is part of the mainstream reproductive rights and justice movement, I can say that I can only think of very few organizations that have menopause on their agenda (actually, just one). Granted, there are a lot of areas that need to be worked on, and this one is not currently a priority. But that said, for the 35.5 million women in the US who are within the age range for menopause, its very important.

I can’t say that I personally have a lot of experience with menopause, but I definitely think all of the recent news about Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and its negative effects shows that we have a lot to learn.

The average age of menopause in the United States, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is 51, with normal menopause occurring as early as 40 and as late as 58 or 59. According to the FDA, about 35.5 million U.S. women are in the age group approaching or into menopause.

Additionally, there is the number of women who begin menopause early, induced by a hysterectomy, or removal of the reproductive organs or ovaries. These women seem to experience particularly harsh menopauses.

In her many years of interviewing menopausal women, Seaman noted that most of the women who experienced “hellish menopauses” had been castrated; that is, their ovaries were removed. Removal of the ovaries occurs in about 75 percent of the hysterectomies performed in the United States and causes sudden and immediate menopause. Many of these procedures are unnecessary in the view of Seaman and other women’s health advocates.

That reminds me of the issue of pregnancy induction–that women who are induced in labor (given artifical pitocin or other chemicals to artifically begin their labor) many times experience much stronger contractions and are much more likely to need an epidural. It becomes a logical connection, that articifically inducing a process results in a strong and sometimes painful reaction in the body. Our reaction then, is to look for chemical relief for the symptoms (either strong contractions or menopause related ailments like hot flashes, weight gain and sleeplessness). Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was until recently extremely common for menopausal women in the US, with 15 million prescriptions filled in 2001. HRT was seen as a way to ease the symptoms of menopause by replacing the hormone levels that naturally decline as a woman enters menopause. But research that came out within the last few years put all of this into question when health concerns were brought up about HRT.

Millions of women stopped taking hormones–which were not very effective for sleep problems–when they learned about the findings of Women’s Health Initiative. Women in the study taking estrogen alone had higher rates of blood clots in deep veins, mild cognitive impairment and urinary incontinence. Women taking both the combination products and estrogen alone benefited from fewer hip and other fractures, but the expected benefits to the heart did not materialize.

For something on the lighter side, check out Menopause The Musical: The Hilarious Celebration of Women and the Change.

Love Your Body Day

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Beryl Roda

It’s the National Organization for Women’s Love Your Body Day.

Do you love what you see when you look in the mirror?

Hollywood and the fashion, cosmetics and diet industries work hard to make each of us believe that our bodies are unacceptable and need constant improvement. Print ads and television commercials reduce us to body parts — lips, legs, breasts — airbrushed and touched up to meet impossible standards. TV shows tell women and teenage girls that cosmetic surgery is good for self-esteem. Is it any wonder that 80% of U.S. women are dissatisfied with their appearance?

Women and girls spend billions of dollars every year on cosmetics, fashion, magazines and diet aids. These industries can’t use negative images to sell their products without our assistance.

Together, we can fight back.

So spread the word and give yourself some love.

ENDA leaves committee without gender indentity protection

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Sad.

The revised Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in the workplace, but with references to gender identity removed, is headed to a vote on the House floor following approval Thursday in committee.

The House Education and Labor Committee voted 27 – 21 to mark up the legislation, sending it to a full vote in the House.

Another minority group gets sold up the river in the name of political compromise. Really disappointing.

Happy Coming Out Day

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National Coming Out Day logo designed by Keith Haring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is National Coming Out Day! In honor of which, I’m wearing my All Families Matter rainbow button. According to Alison Bechdel (and Wikipedia) National Coming Out day was founded in 1987. Share your coming out story with someone, or wear a rainbow button or sticker.

Why the T in LGBT is here to stay

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A great response to the Aravosis article I posted on earlier this week (see below) was just put up at Salon. Susan Stryker writes a witty, angry and totally on point response to Aravosis’ small-minded arguments about gender identity inclusion in the Employment Non-discrimination Act (ENDA). Her best point? That simply having protection against discrimination for sexual preference or sexuality only protects those in the community who are straight-acting.

This full version of ENDA, rather than the nearly introduced one that stripped away previously agreed-upon protections against gender-based discrimination and would protect only sexual orientation, is the one that is of potential benefit to all Americans, and not just to a narrow demographic slice of straight-looking, straight-acting gays and lesbians. It doesn’t really even do that much good for this group, as Lambda Legal points out, because of a loophole big enough to drive a truck through.

Aravosis, not being one to mince words when it comes to mincing meat, wants to know what he, as a gay man, has “in common with a man who wants to cut off his penis, surgically construct a vagina, and become a woman.” The answer is “gender.” The last time I checked my dictionary, homosexuality had something to with people of one gender tending to fall in love with people of the same gender. The meaning of homosexuality thus depends on the definition of gender. However much Aravosis might wish to cut the trannies away from the rest of his herd, thereby preserving a place free of gender trouble for just plain gay guys such as himself, that operation isn’t conceptually possible. Gender and sexuality are like two lines intersecting on a graph, and trying to make them parallel undoes the very notion of homo-, hetero- or bisexuality.

You rock Susan. Read the whole article here.

“In simpler times, we were all gay.”

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At least according to Salon.com’s John Aravosis. His article, entitled How did the T get in LGBT, tackles the question of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the current political battle going on in Congress about including transgender people in the protections afforded by the bill.

This discussion, about whether it’s right to leave transgendered people out of the bill if it helps to pass the legislation (which protects LGB people from workplace discrimination based on sexual preference) isn’t a new debate for the progressive community. In an attempt to advance what Aravosis calls “practical politics,” minority groups have been sold down the river. Examples? Women under 18 and the Emergency Contraception over the counter debate (they still need a prescription). State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and immigrants.

I understand the idea that some victories need to happen piecemeal–but these kind of compromises always leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. “Practical politics” work well for the people who don’t get cut out of the deal, but they don’t really help us move forward a broader vision for social justice.

Aravosis brings up the example of civil rights in his article as well, and the history there connects to another interesting example of compromise. When the civil rights movement was first developing, a political decision was made by the leaders to use the civil rights framework rather than the human rights framework (of which civil rights in one of eight rights afforded to human beings within this framework).

This broader vision of human rights has allowed other countries (who in many ways seem less “developed” than ours) make headway into some of the areas where we have not, because the human rights framework lays it all out in clear and indisputable ways. Mexico City for example, just legalized first trimester abortion, an argument that made headway in a heavily Catholic country because of this framework. Spain and South Africa have both legalized gay marriage.

Where would we be if we had pushed for a broader vision of human rights back in the day? Aravosis would argue that African-American’s would be without any rights at all. I have trouble believing that.

So I just read Cara’s reponse to Aravosis’ piece. She says it all, in an angry and justified tone. Check it out. My favorite part might be the title: You don’t have to be straight to be an ass.