Women's Health // Current TV

Intermittent calorie restriction may protect against breast cancer | Machines Like Us

Cancer researchers have long studied the role of diet on breast cancer risk, but... more

BUILDUSMAXIMUS
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2 years ago
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Why women don't get IUDs

Slate's Kate Klonick wonders why more American women don't use IUDs. As the... more

fountaingoats
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2 years ago
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10 comments

Franken Blasts Supreme Court During Sotomayor Vote

Al Franken spewed fire and Amy Klobuchar threw brimstone this morning at the Senate... more

atomiclegion
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2 years ago
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1 comment

Body Mass Index Is Useless and Outdated. Why Do Doctors Still Use It?

A few extra pounds can extend your life. Or so chirped the press, reporting on a... more

atomiclegion
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2 years ago
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4 comments

Women 'Naturally Weaker' to HIV

It is well known that HIV progresses faster in women than in men with similar levels... more

crazykatlady
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2 years ago
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20 scary old-school surgical tools

That, ladies, is a Victorian-era speculum. Makes you appreciate modern gynocology ...

nazbags
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2 years ago
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3 comments

More Creepy Ads: Fertility is our Birthright

"The moment we pass from womanhood to motherhood, we cross a threshold. For many... more

catchiecoo
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2 years ago
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2 comments

Boys campaign to save tennis star's giant boobs

No joke. Nearly 2,000 people have joined the Facebook group to stop Simona Halep from... more

abbym0308
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2 years ago
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6 comments

School Makes Teen Reveal Pregnancy

How far should a school go to get help for a pregnant teen? A mom in Texas says her... more

retro_Syl
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3 years ago
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The Pre-teen Girl Mystery

Girls have been hitting puberty earlier and earlier since the 1950s, but new research... more

atomiclegion
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3 years ago
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11 comments

UK Woman 66 Becomes Oldest Mum

Quote: THIS pregnancy poses an enormous risk, but the urge to be a mother can be... more

blueghost09
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3 years ago
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Number of women binge drinkers 'has almost doubled in recent years'

Almost one in six women now drink more than twice the recommended daily limit of... more

slagface
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3 years ago
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Telling Pregnant Women Not to Drink is Sexist?

A British medical and legal expert, Dr. Colin Gavaghan, claims that telling pregnant women that can not have the occasional drink is both medically inaccurate and sexist. He claims there is no clear cut evidence between light to moderate drinking and damage to the fetus. Heavy drinking is still a no-no.

The article reads:

"Doctors' advice on the issue, including that of the Chief Medical Officer for England, is paternalistic and could be damaging in the long-term as the public loses faith in their expertise, he said.

Dr Gavaghan said: "The British Medical Association expresses concern anything less than a recommendation of total abstinence risks being interpreted as a 'green light' for heavier drinking.

"But the opposite possibility must also be considered, that if they are seen to be exaggerating risks that recent and well publicised studies have shown to be negligible, their advice on genuine risks will carry less authority.

"It may, in short, be important for bodies like the Department of Health and BMA to consider whether they are in danger of 'crying wolf', with the attendant risk that genuine warnings of real dangers will be treated less seriously."

In 2007 the government changed its stance and, despite the lack of new evidence, recommended total abstinence during pregnancy closely followed by similar advice from the British Medical Association. "

Well, this does imply that one gender is scrupulously monitored during the fulfillment of their biological imperative? Are pregnant women patrolled by public opinion about being a good mother for conception on? Preaching complete abstinence from alcohol during pregnancy seems to indicate that women chronically misinterprets facts and that "some drinking" would automatically be assumed to mean "all drinking". What does this say about the medical profession's opinion about a woman's decision making capabilities?

If you are pregnant, your life and behavior alters- is it fair to say that BTW... along with some new stretch marks, you can't have a glass of wine? Or is it just that alcohol use comes with a built-in set of paternalistic rules? Kids can't drink. You have to have rules about how, when and where you sell it.A British medical and legal expert, Dr. Colin Gavaghan, claims that telling pregnant... more

catchiecoo
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3 years ago
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Aussie teen charged with aborting foetus herself

A 19-year-old girl who allegedly took an abortion pill illegal in Australia was... more

abbym0308
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3 years ago
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7 comments

Run and Hide from Your Next Pelvic Exam?

This story, by a blogger at The Guardian's website, details her trip to the... more

catchiecoo
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3 years ago
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6 comments

Stop contraceptives to get fit!

According to U.S. researchers, young women seeking a sculpted, muscular body may want... more

lisako
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3 years ago
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6 comments

More Women Suffering From Stress

"Women's mental health is deteriorating as increasing numbers seek help from... more

kirstie
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3 years ago
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Even 1 Drink A Day Ups Women's Cancer Risk

A study of nearly 1.3 million British women offers yet more evidence that moderate alcohol consumption increases the risk of a handful of cancers.

British researchers surveyed middle-aged women at breast cancer screening clinics about their drinking habits, and tracked their health for seven years.

A quarter of the women reported no alcohol use. Nearly all the rest reported fewer than three drinks a day; the average was one drink a day. Researchers compared the lightest drinkers - two or fewer drinks a week - with people who drank more.

Each extra drink per day increased the risk of breast, rectal and liver cancer, University of Oxford researchers reported Tuesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The type of alcohol - wine, beer or liquor - didn't matter.

That supports earlier research, but the new wrinkle: Alcohol consumption was linked to esophageal and oral cancers only when smokers drank.

Also, moderate drinkers actually had a lower risk of thyroid cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and renal cell cancer.

For an individual woman, the overall alcohol risk is small. In developed countries, about 118 of every 1,000 women develop any of these cancers, and each extra daily drink added 11 breast cancers and four of the other types to that rate, the study found.

But population-wide, 13 percent of those cancers in Britain may be attributable to alcohol, the researchers concluded.

Moderate alcohol use has long been thought to be heart-healthy, something the new research doesn't address but that prompts repeated debate about safe levels. U.S. health guidelines already recommend that women consume no more than one drink a day; two a day for men, who metabolize alcohol differently.

"You have to balance all those things out," said Dr. Philip J. Brooks, who researches alcohol and cancer at the National Institutes of Health. "This kind of information is important for people to know and to consult with their physician about the various risk factors they have."A study of nearly 1.3 million British women offers yet more evidence that moderate... more

Buddah_Funk
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3 years ago
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IVF Effectiveness May Depend on Age

Did you know a woman’s odds of conceiving a baby, even through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), significantly drops after the age of 40? Because of the advancements in fertility treatments and procedures, many women may not realize that even though fertility treatments are a viable option, they cannot overcome the effects of aging. Not only do women feel the effects of their age with their fertility decreasing, they also see their odds of having a baby through IVF also decrease. However, women younger than 35 could potentially have just as good of odds of conceiving through IVF as another woman, of the same age with no fertility problems.

Over 1 million babies have been born because of successful IVF procedures, with the first “test tube” baby being born over 30 years ago. With the growing number of women entering the workforce and taking on prospering careers, many are making the transition to motherhood later on in life. While in many aspects waiting to have a family until later in life may seem to be very beneficial, in some aspects, such as childrearing age, may contribute to a large risk. Factors of age could possibly prevent a women’s dream of motherhood, or at least through pregnancies of their own.

Over 113,000 IVF treatment cycles are performed in the United States annually, and this figure continues to grow at a steady pace. The process costs in the neighborhood of $12,000 for each attempt and on average requires seven cycles of treatments, which can be physically and emotionally challenging. For each procedure, a woman undergoes several weeks of hormone injections, to stimulate their ovaries, and sometimes they must have their eggs extracted, to be fertilized in the lab, in order to produce viable embryos. If viable embryos are obtained, then they are placed into the mother’s womb in hopes of a baby.

Before undergoing fertility treatments, majority of couples want to know their odds of actually bringing home a little bundle of joy. Beth Malizia, M.D. with the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, along with Alan Penzias, M.D., senior author and a reproductive endocrinologist at Boston IVF and BIDMC, and coauthor Michele Hacker, ScD., MSPH, recently released the largest study ever, to try and clarify the accuracy of IVF and more accurately project the odds for parent hopefuls. The new study released in the January 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to evaluate a broader spectrum of women. The study evaluated over 6,000 women, including older women and those using either frozen or fresh embryos, from 2000 to 2005, at a large Boston clinic.

Over 3,100 babies were born by the end of the study out of 14,248 cycles. After six IVF cycles, overall the cumulative live-birth rate was 72 percent, based on the more optimistic estimate that assumed those patients who didn’t return for IVF treatments would have the same odds of having a child as those who continued with treatments. If researchers took the more conservative approach and assumed that those women who did not return for further IVF treatments did not have babies, then the percentage dropped to 51 percent. However, Dr. Penzias said the more accurate rate is probably somewhere in the middle of the two estimates.Did you know a woman’s odds of conceiving a baby, even through In Vitro... more

music_fan
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3 years ago
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The American Fertility Association launches campaign to educate younger women.

When I first read the title of this article "New Fertility Campaign Targets Younger Women" my knee jerk reactions was "what women are just baby factories? we have to just make kids? whats this all about?!" then I actually read the article.

The AFA is starting a program to educate younger women about infertility diseases which can greatly affect your life outside of having kids. I myself suffer from two of the most common ones, Edometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) so this issue is very close to my heart.

Women are not properly educated on their reproductive health, which as I mentioned, effects a lot more than you ability to give birth. Even if you never want children you have to on the watch for infertility diseases since they can cause a myriad of other health problems. Whats sad is gynecological health isnt really discussed much in this country because anything to do with the female reproductive system is viewed as "dirty" and "taboo." Younger women often dont consider their reproductive health because they just assume that nothing can go wrong until they hit their 40s and have to start watching for menopause or breast cancer. Many women develop gynecological diseases in their teens and 20s that can cause infertility if not caught early. I myself was diagnosed at the age of 15 with Endometriosis and PCOS at the age of 18. Many women I know have lived for years in pain due to undiagnosed fertility related diseases simply because both they and their doctors are not educated enough on gynecological diseases.

What the AFA is doing is creating a safe and non threatening environment to engage younger and encourage them to be more proactive about their reproductive health. Although the campaign unfortunately seems to put a little too much focus on the biological clock and thinking about pregnancy, I applaud it for trying to get women engaged and educated on their own bodies.

Read the article and let me know what you think...should young women be engaging in discussion on reproductive health? Or is it putting too much pressure on having kids?When I first read the title of this article "New Fertility Campaign Targets... more

seanalyn
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3 years ago
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