Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

Do You Trust Women?

January 23rd, 2012 by Chris Bobel

Do you see the connections between menstrual health awareness and reproductive justice?

At re: Cycling, we sure do, because being critical of how menstruation is regarded (and managed)—from menarche forward—is one way we loosen the social control of women’s bodies.

My body, my choice, my whole life long.

And that’s exactly what reproductive justice is about—fighting for everyone’s access to affordable, quality reproductive health care of their choosing. That’s a fight to get behind, not the stupid “War on Women” advanced by certain presidential hopefuls (Hello Rick Santorum).

We are excited about this creative campaign organized by The Trust Women/Silver Ribbon Campaign, a coalition of 42 national and local organizations (the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR), Catholics for Choice, NARAL-ProChoice California, Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific, and SisterSong/Trust Black Women.

The campaign takes aim at “extremist politicians elected with a mandate to fix the current economic crisis instead chose to divert the public’s attention with policy battles about these private decisions.”

So why are our legislators and presidential candidates hell-bent on denying access to basic health care services –including contraception and abortion?

Really, why do we let them get away with this?

In San Francisco, The Trust Women/ Silver Ribbon campaign is literally taking the message of reproductive justice to the streets by flying banners—colorful, clear and decisive—all over the city. The banners are more than a defensive operation in the battle against women’s autonomy; they seek to end the offensive by reminding us that most Americans are, after all, pro-choice.

The banners read:

  • Her Decision, Her Health
  • U.S. Out of My Uterus
  • Fix the Economy, Support My Autonomy
  • Reproductive Rights are Human Rights
  • San Francisco is Pro-Choice

That’s all very good, you might say, but I don’t live in San Francisco.

During Trust Women Week, January 20-27, the campaign is staging a Virtual March (with  MoveOn)—a time for reproductive justice supporters to express their support online.

So go here and take action.  Let’s end the War on Women.

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Posted in Activism, Reproduction | 4 Comments »

How do YOU define reproductive health?

December 8th, 2011 by Heather Dillaway

By Justine Siegemundin, 1723. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Menstruation and menopause are reproductive health experiences, aren’t they? At least that’s what I think. But I’m starting to wonder how many people agree. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how people define the things they experience and how researchers define the things they research. The last blog entry I wrote was on the confusing and frustrating definitions of the menopause transition. Today I thought I’d zoom out a bit more and think about what “reproduction” and/or “reproductive health” means. I personally think of reproductive health as encompassing a woman’s entire life course and including a whole range of experiences (and the pursuit and achievement of individual wellbeing throughout all of these experiences) but I don’t know if others do. For instance, about two weeks ago I was on the phone with a potential coauthor, and she and I had a misunderstanding because I was talking about “reproductive health” as including prevention of HIV and other STDs and she was thinking of “reproductive health” as just about conception, pregnancy, and birth.  I’ve been studying what I think of as women’s normal reproductive processes and experiences (e.g., menopause, menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding) for a long time, so I thought I would use this blog entry to tell readers what I think about “reproductive health” and see if anyone agrees with me.

Adrienne Rich, in her 1986 edition of Of Woman Born, proposes that biological reproduction has been defined narrowly by most people (feminist or otherwise). Thus, for many, “reproduction” is equated with just two female processes: pregnancy and childbirth.  While it may not have been the goal of any one person to define reproduction so narrowly, this seems to be a reality.  At various points throughout history, conception and contraception – at times, even abortion – have been added to the definition of what “reproduction” meant, or what “reproductive rights” women were owed, but “reproduction” and “reproductive health” still refers to a very short list of experiences.

I believe we should acknowledge, however, that women’s “reproductive” experiences include more than just conception, contraception, pregnancy, and birth. Reproduction includes an entire range of reproductive experiences, including: menstruation and menopause, use of and problems with contraceptives, choosing whether to become a mother/father, breastfeeding, HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases/infections, prostate and breast cancer, awareness of and access to reproductive health care, protection against sterilization abuse, vasectomy and hysterectomy experiences, the rights of single and/or lesbian mothers, the rights of single and/or gay fathers, donor insemination, cloning and other new advancements in reproductive technology, adoption, infertility treatments and experiences, gynecological practices, alternative reproductive health movements, decisions over whether to engage in heterosexual intercourse, and making informed “choices” in any of these instances. This is just a partial list, and I could go on and on. I propose that we think of “reproduction” (and, by default, “reproductive health” experiences) as the collection of (a) biological, physiological and/or embodied processes and (b) emotional, social, economic, and political decisions and/or actions that individuals — along with their families and other social groups — participate in (either voluntarily or sometimes through some sort of coercion), as they transition in and out of certain stages of their life course, decide whether or not to be sexually-active, and/or decide whether or not to become genetic, gestational and/or social “parents” or caregivers of children.  Any one reproductive experience – for example, menstruation or menopause – can also really be a set of processes and decisions and actions that women make/take/experience/pass through over an indefinite period of time – usually not happening in just one moment. Thus, menstruation or menopause are full-fledged and complicated reproductive experiences in and of themselves, as much as pregnancy or childbirth or any other “reproductive” experiences are, that the majority of women pass through, albeit in different ways, throughout their lifetimes. So are all of the other processes and experiences I’ve named above, and more I haven’t named. “Reproductive health” would then refer to a state of physical and mental wellbeing, indeed biopsychosocial wellbeing, while experiencing any of these sets of processes or decisions or actions.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Language, Menopause, Menstruation, Reproduction | 2 Comments »

Teens Using the Rhythm Method? It’s Time for Body Literacy

June 8th, 2010 by Laura Wershler

Cycle SavvyTeen sex: More use rhythm method for birth control.

It was an odd headline for an Associated Press story on the 86 page report on teen sexual activity just released by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. Not all that relevant to the broader subject of the study on which the report is based: Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, National Survey of Family Growth 2006-2008. If you’re interested, it is a fascinating read.

But it was the headline and this excerpt from the story that caught my attention:

About 17 percent of sexually experienced teen girls say they had used the rhythm method – timing their sex to avoid fertile days to prevent getting pregnant. That’s up from 11 percent in 2002.

They may have been using another form of birth control at the same time. But the increase is considered worrisome because the rhythm method doesn’t work about 25 percent of the time, said Joyce Abma, the report’s lead author. She’s a social scientist at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

You can’t study what you don’t understand. The study authors demonstrate their lack of knowledge about natural birth control methods by the question they asked study participants:  Have you ever used rhythm or safe period by calendar to prevent pregnancy?

There are many brands of natural birth control. Some , like the Rhythm and Calendar methods, are not effective. No proponent of Natural Family Planning (NFP) or Fertility Awareness Based Methods (FABM), which have effectiveness rates as high as 99.4 percent, would recommend them.  Yet this study does nothing to differentiate between these methods of natural birth control, thereby confusing the public, the study results and themselves.

It’s high time researchers studied up on natural birth control methods if they want to include questions about them in a study on the contraceptive practices of teens or adults.

Until they do, I suggest anyone interested in the sexual and reproductive health of teen girls start buying copies of Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen’s Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body.  This book can help our daughters acquire the life skill of body literacy – to understand the mysteries of their menstrual cycles and how this knowledge can serve them well as they make decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and lives.

 

 

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Posted in Birth Control, Girls, New Research, Newspapers, Reproduction, Sex | 2 Comments »

Book Review: In Our Control

May 21st, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling


http://www.flickr.com/photos/santarosa/ / CC BY 2.0

http://www.flickr.com/photos/santarosa/ / CC BY 2.0

Laura Eldridge’s new book In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women (Seven Stories Press, 2010) isn’t kidding with that subtitle. The last time I remember reading so much detail about contraceptive options was poring over Our Bodies, Ourselves when I was in my 20s.

Eldridge reviews every method of birth control known to modern woman–and, importantly, some that aren’t widely known. She even briefly reviews the history of contraception in 19th and 20th centuries, reminding us that birth control is not a new invention. People, especially female-bodied people, have struggled to control their fertility from pretty much the first moment humans figured out how it worked.

In Our Control differs from Our Bodies, Ourselves in offering more than just the mechanics of both hormonal and barrier methods: Eldridge provides a history of each method and analysis of the political and cultural contexts of their use in the 21st century U.S.

For example, the chapter about the morning-after pill (also known by either the brand name Plan B or as emergency contraception, EC) discusses the political battle to achieve Federal Drug Administration approval, including Susan Wood’s resignation from the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health over what she believed to be “willful disregard of scientific evidence showing Plan B to be safe.”

Eldridge extensively addresses the relationship between birth control and menstruation, focusing one chapter specifically on the use of hormonal contraception to reduce or eliminate menstrual cycles. She draws upon a wide range of resources to illustrate the cultural attitudes and contexts of menstruation, from stories of the role of birth-control pill co-developer John Rock’s Catholicism in the three-weeks-on/one-week-off dosing of the first pill to a Saturday Night Live parody of advertising schemes for menstrual suppression drugs (with Annuale, you’ll menstruate only once a year, but hold on to your fucking hat!).

The book also covers environmental impacts of contraception, the politics of HPV vaccinations, ongoing research into a birth control pill for men and natural methods of birth control such as fertility awareness–which Eldridge carefully distinguishes from the much-maligned “rhythm method.” She notes that the method approved by the Catholic church is properly called a calendar-based method and involves estimating when ovulation occurs and avoiding sex during that time. Fertility awareness, however, involves a more complex, systematic attention to physiological markers of female fertility. It requires careful monitoring of waking temperature, vaginal sensation, position of cervix and cervical fluid, as well as dates of menstrual flow and sexual activity. Eldridge cautions that fertility awareness is too complicated to be taught in a short chapter, and that observing and charting one’s cycle must be done “for a significant amount of time before you begin to rely on it for contraception.”

Laura Eldridge learned women’s health writing at the side of the late women’s health advocate and activist Barbara Seaman, and it shows. She contextualizes her work with her own experience and preferences, but provides thorough documentation so that women can more easily make their own decisions. This is women’s health activism at its best. Feminism isn’t just about choices, but about having access to information and resources to make informed, authentic choices–and that is only possible when reliable and comprehensive information is widely available.

Cross-posted at Ms. magazine blog.

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Posted in Birth Control, books, Reproduction | 1 Comment »

Ultrasound Man:Birth Control Superhero

May 17th, 2010 by Laura Wershler

superheroYou know how most superheros become superheros because of exposure to some weird, intensified chemical or element? Take Peter Parker’s spider bite for example.

According to a story reported in various media, including International Planned Parenthood Federation’s website, if science can perfect the contraceptive effect of ultasound on men’s testicles, then we may be in for a new breed of superhero.  Ultrasound Man: able to bear the burden of pregnancy prevention for women everywhere. 

I joke, but for decades women have yearned for gender equality when it comes to bearing the burden of birth control. Could the promise of six months of ultrasound induced, reversible infertility in men be the answer? Well, to date, we only know it works in rats. There is a long way to go before we send the men for a bi-annual ultrasound “zap test”.

This isn’t the first male method touted over the last decade. In 2003, news out of the UK about a birth control pill for men had women nodding their heads with approval. I was immediately dubious and dashed off a commentary for the Calgary Herald that began thus:

Memo to Big Pharma: Save your money. If you think the male birth control pill is going to be a big seller, think again. Memo to women everywhere: Curb your enthusiasm. If you think it’s time men took more responsibility, you’re right — but the Pill for Bill is not going to be it.

Because of the complex hormonal action of the pill for men, I knew it wouldn’t fly. As I noted in my piece:

According to a story from the London Telegraph, because the treatment is invasive, it is likely to be used only by men in long-term relationships. Read it and weep, gals, because this is the wicked truth. It’s OK for women of any age or relationship status to ingest birth control pills or receive the Depo-Provera injection that completely shuts down their reproductive systems, but men would never do the same. It is already postulated that only men in committed relationships are likely to submit to invasive hormonal contraception. That would be supportive husbands and partners of the best kind.

Although a recent  survey by the Family Planning Association found that one third of men would definitely use a birth control pill for men if it became available, I doubt very much, once the mechanism of action were explained (full disclosure), that there would be many takers. I suspect the side effects, and concerns about synthetic testosterone, would result in a pathetic compliance rate.

Certainly the ultrasound method sounds much less invasive. Research leader James Tsuruta of the University of North Carolina said: “We think this could provide men with reliable, low-cost, non-hormonal contraception from a single round of treatment.

Happily, “the team plans to investigate the mechanism that causes temporary infertility.” I think the guys would want to know how and why it works before signing up.  But they can rest assured because Dr. Tsuruta also said: “Establishing safety, efficacy and reversability: these are our top concerns.”

As media stories proliferate documenting the growing trend among young women to eschew the Pill (et. al) in favour of non-hormonal methods, news that there may be a safe, simple method for men on the horizon is both welcome and long overdue.

What I find hard to take, however, is this suggestion expressed by Allan Pacey from the University of Sheffield:

There is certainly a place for an effective non-hormonal contraceptive in men, but whether men would find it acceptable to have their testicles scanned regularly remains to be seen.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Birth Control, Men, New Research, Pharmaceutical, Reproduction | Comments Off

Does your birth control method stop your cycle?

April 20th, 2010 by Chris Hitchcock

It’s starting. With the approaching 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, there will be a flood of anniversary celebrations and reviews of birth control methods. Which is good. We should have those discussions more often. Just say “no” (on the part of parents who don’t want to hear about it) is a big contributor to unwanted teen pregnancy.

Today’s Wall Street Journal is running an article called The Birth-Control Riddle. The riddle is apparently the high rate of unwanted pregnancy, despite the availability of a range of effective birth control methods. And, as befits the Wall Street Journal, each birth control method is accompanied by a price tag, so you can make an informed consumer decision.

But what I noticed was that there is no real awareness of what we at SMCR feel is an important consideration: Does your birth control method stop your cycle?

Some methods do – they deliver progestins and/or estradiol in high enough doses to act on the parts of the brain that normally make the hormones that talk to the ovaries that stimulate growth of a follicle, then trigger its release. This is a complex, whole body system, that normally we only notice because of uterine effects (that would be menstrual bleeding or pregnancy). And as a culture we have fairly casually accepted the idea that it is optional, and perhaps even optimally replaced by a pill made by a drug company.

When addressing the (no longer so) new extended use cycle-stopping contraceptive options, the WSJ glibly explains that “Experts say there is no health reason that women need to have a period if they are not ovulating or building up uterine lining each month.” In other words, so long as your uterus is not endangered (by pregnancy or endometrial cancer), there is no worry. Never mind that both estrogen and progesterone act on receptors throughout the body (bone, skin, blood vessels, brain, gut, breast), or that the synthetic estrogens and progestins don’t quite act in the same way, and we don’t quite completely understand how yet. And it’s just a change of schedule, so what difference can it make that your tissues are stimulated for 12 (or 52) weeks at a time instead of 3 before they get a break?

The problem is, with changes in the schedule of delivery and the reduction in hormone-free time, we really won’t know whether there are any consequences for a while. Oral contraceptives are taken by healthy young women, so the base rate of problems is low, and you need large numbers to measure the rates of serious side effects. I haven’t heard any further about the post-marketing surveillance studies for blood clots (venous thromboembolism) that the FDA asked Lybrel to conduct following its 2007 approval. But those 5-year followup data should be out around 2013. It will be interesting to see whether they are published, or just submitted as a report to the FDA. I’m guessing that will depend on whether the company likes the story they tell.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Birth Control, Health Care, Menstruation, ovulation, Pharmaceutical, Reproduction, Sex | 4 Comments »

‘Baby Brain’ Is a Myth

February 5th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Mama and baby elephant in Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

Mama and baby elephant in Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

When new moms are sometimes forgetful or spacey, it is often attributed to ‘baby brain’ or ‘mumnesia’ or some other clever appellation that reinforces the idea that pregnancy leads to memory loss. It’s another variation on the women-are-ruled-by-hormones meme. In my humble opinion, the sleep deprivation that often accompanies late pregnancy and life with a newborn is a far more likely cause of memory loss.

While the research team at the Centre for Mental Health Research of the Australian National University didn’t investigate my theory, their research found no evidence that pregnancy or motherhood affects women’s brain power.

Professor Christensen’s team recruited 1,241 women aged 20-24 in 1999 and 2003 and asked them to perform a series of tasks. The women were followed up at four-year intervals and asked to perform the same cognitive tests. A total of 77 women were pregnant at the follow-up assessments, 188 had become mothers and 542 remained childless. The researchers found no significant differences in cognitive change for those women who were pregnant or new mothers during the assessments and those who were not.

The researchers suggest that previous findings that appear to confirm the ‘baby brain’ phenomenon are likely due to biased sampling. Their study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, was the first time women had been recruited from the general population before pregnancy.

[Via Skepchick]

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Posted in New Research, Reproduction | 1 Comment »

Time-limited opportunity! Don’t delay!

February 2nd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

Cartoon: I can't believe I forgot to have childrenThere’s been quite a bit of internet buzz during the last week or so about a study conducted at University of St Andrews and Edinburgh University by Tom Kelsey, in which he and his colleagues develop a computer model of how a woman’s supply of eggs declines over time. The scaremongering accompanying news reports of this study is reminiscent of the 1980s kerfuffle about how women over 40 were more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to be married. Some headlines are proclaiming “Women lose 90% of eggs by age 30″ and advising women who want to be parents to act quickly. Some are even recommending fertility screening analogous to cancer screening.

Before you ladies under 30 rush off to get impregnated, let me point out a few things. First, this study is a computer model. It is not definitive evidence that women cannot conceive after 30. Second, there has been ongoing new research in the last several years that suggests mammals may be able to produce new ova, contrary to conventional doctrine that females have a fixed reserve of egg cells enclosed in the ovaries at birth. Although there are many skeptics, there is still a great deal that is unknown about how the ovaries work.

Third, it only takes one egg cell to make a baby.

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Posted in anatomy, Communication, Internet, New Research, Newspapers, ovulation, Reproduction | 3 Comments »

Soon: (Even)Better ‘Bitch’ing

January 28th, 2010 by Chris Bobel

bitch magAs of Feb 8th, freelance writer, re:Cycling guest blogger, and oral contraception watchdog Holly Grigg-Spall (check out her blog “Sweetening the Pill”) will join the Bitch magazine blog team. She will opine on women’s reproductive health—news stories, developments, research, and more.

I have been a long time fan of Bitch and expect to love it that much more with Grigg-Spall burning up the blogscape with her take on things.

More eyes and ears and voices! Hurrah!

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Posted in Reproduction | 1 Comment »

The Quiet Uterus?

November 7th, 2009 by Chris Bobel

Guest Post by Moira Howes, Trent University

Uterus Vase by The Plug and Stephanie Rollin

Uterus Vase by The Plug and Stephanie Rollin

Over thirty years ago, Roger V. Short argued that regular menstrual cycling is probably a health hazard and thus, we should try to “keep the ovaries and the female reproductive tract in a state of quiescence when reproduction is not desired” [1]

More recently, Timothy Rowe, Head of Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility, University of British Columbia, claims that “the pill keeps a woman’s reproductive organs quiet and healthy”[2]
As a philosopher of science, I find the concept of a “quiescent” bodily organ fascinating, troubling and great fodder: there is nothing so tempting to a philosopher of science as a vague, unscientific and value-laden concept.

Short and Rowe use the concept of “quiescence” to describe a presumably defined state of the uterus, but the concept is vague. It’s also unscientific—it calls to mind the promises made for “stimulated” immune systems and “cleansed” livers at my local health food store. And, the quiescent uterus raises old value-laden associations between women and passivity. If the dormant, quiet, and weak uterus is healthy, is the active, energetic, and strong uterus unhealthy?

The quiescent concept also connects temptingly with another problematic concept: “incessant ovulation.”

Short refers to regular ovulation as “incessant ovulation” and an “incessant ovulation theory” has emerged in the last decade or so. Strictly speaking, “incessant” just means “uninterrupted.” But it has negative connotations that the terms “uninterrupted” and “regular” do not. We would not say “incessant ovulation is important for bone health,” but we would say that “regular ovulation is important for bone health.” Ovulation has been described as hard work and as causing wear and tear on the ovaries. Interestingly, we do not talk of spermatogenesis in terms of incessant activity, hard work, or wear and tear: the more prolific the testicular activity, the more energetic, virile and healthy the testicle.

A more specific reason I find the term “quiescent uterus” fascinating concerns my interest in the field of reproductive immunology. Surprisingly little work has been done on the immune defences of the human female reproductive and genital tracts (though immunologists like Alison Quayle, Charles Wira and John Fahey are starting to rectify matters).

Because relatively little is known about mucosal immune defences in the human female reproductive and genital tract—and about how the reproductive immune system also contributes to blood vessel development in the uterus, ovulation, construction of the maternal-fetal interface, and the growth and development of the fetus (to name a few of the more recently discovered immune activities)—it is easy to assume that the uterus just “does nothing” when it is not involved in reproduction. Taking into account these immunological activities, however, it is clear that the reproductive tract does things besides ovulate and gestate fetuses.

What happens immunologically when women take hormonal forms of contraception?

Are the immunological activities of the uterus “quieted” and thus improved? Or are they disrupted and unhealthy?

From an immunological perspective—not to mention social and other medical perspectives—I am concerned that the notion of quiescence may stall research and pose risks to women’s health.
I’d love to hear other ideas about the quiescent uterus.

[1] Short 1976, The Evolution of Human Reproduction. Proc R Soc Lond B 195, 21

[2] “Fertility: From Foe to Friend,” Kate Rae, Glow Magazine, November 2009, 68

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Posted in Birth Control, Language, New Research, ovulation, Reproduction | 3 Comments »

Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.