Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

Working Mothers

April 29th, 2013 by Paula Derry

“Working Mother and Son” Photo by Russell Chopping // Creative Commons 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/russellchopping/3501039851/

Research is often reported as though it is news, as though the most recent article is the best and research that was not published this year is somehow not as interesting or is out-of-date. I recently dug out some articles I wrote about the psychology of working mothers that were based on a study I did in the mid-1980s. I interviewed psychotherapists about how being a mother had affected their professional lives. This study was qualitative research. I offer the results as interesting ideas, not as definitive conclusions.  Some points I think are still interesting:

  1. Overall, about 64% of the 25 mothers I interviewed opted for part-time work; when children were preschoolers, this was about 78%. Psychotherapists, unlike many other women, have the option of working part-time:  part-time jobs, especially for therapists who see clients in private practice, are the same jobs that a full-time worker would have.
  2. I compared the mothers with another group of 19 therapists who did not have children. The non-mothers tended to work full time (about 90%).  However, both groups of women were deeply and apparently equally committed to their jobs.
  3. Many of the mothers (about 60%) felt that work was not as important to them as it would be if they were childless. However, this did not mean that work was unimportant. For most women, it only meant that they now had two strong priorities instead of one.
  4. Almost all of the mothers (88%) felt that having children affected their work as psychotherapists by deepening their empathy, understanding, or emotional knowledge about parents and parenting. This was not simply intellectual, that they knew more facts, although this was also true. It was experiential understanding, a different experience of what facts mean. This was so even though their profession involves helping clients understand their parents or their parenting, and was reported whether they had a child while in graduate school or after they had worked for many years.
  5. One aspect of this increased knowledge was an experience of how passionate an experience mothering is. Another aspect was a less idealized view of both parents and children, and greater tendency to see the experiences of parents and children from their own perspectives. For example, in addition to seeing parents in terms of how their children felt (e.g., that the parent was mean or rejecting), the therapists might perceive more clearly where parents were coming from or that children might misunderstand or be unreasonable.
  6. This greater ability to see the position of both parents and children more clearly is what a psychologist might call psychological individuation. That is, the stereotype is that mothers are or should be all-giving, selfless, thinking only about their children. However, these mothers seemed to grow more realistic, clear about and accepting of who children as well as parents are. As I said in one paper:  “Interconnectedness, or intimacy, requires a sense of oneself and the other as separate but related. (If children really do lack a sense of this separation, that is no reason why their parents, who are adults, should identify with their perspective.)”

References

Derry, P.S. (1994) Motherhood and the importance of professional identity to psychotherapists. Women & Therapy, 15, 149-163.
Derry, P.S. (1992) Motherhood and the clinician/mother’s view of parent and child. In  J. Chrisler & D. Howard (Eds.), New directions in feminist psychology:  Scholarship/Practice/Research. New York: Springer.

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Posted in Communication, Motherhood, New Research | 1 Comment »

Bored by Research Updates and News Headlines

January 3rd, 2013 by Heather Dillaway

"— Allons, à ton tour, ma petite... vas-y ! — Non, Papa ; si on devient si vilaine que ça en un an, j'aime mieux pas entrer".

By Achille Lemot (1846-1909) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes I think biomedical researchers and media spokespersons are just searching to find the pathology in our lives. Not that we don’t know this already, especially when it comes to women’s health. Because of how medicalization works, of course anything that veers from the defined “norm” for women (here, a young woman who menstruates every 28 days like clockwork) is pathological. Thus, menopausal women are pathological by definition. But, sometimes this gets pretty depressing, and really, it’s not very accurate considering that the vast majority of women go through menopause at some point during the midlife (so doesn’t that make menopause pretty normal and non-pathological?). In my Google alerts last week, here were the “menopause” headlines:

Diet, Exercise Post Menopause Help Reduce Risk of Breast Cancer
Medical Daily

Menopause linked to higher brain aneurysm risk
abc7.com

Healthy lifestyle during menopause may decrease breast cancer risk later on
Medical Xpress

Weight-y menopause
The Star Online

Diet To Overcome Menopause Problems
BoldSky

I do understand that there are many more health risks in middle age and beyond, and that changing/waning hormone levels at menopause induces different concerns/risks than women might have faced before menopause. Researchers, doctors, and media spokespersons have made it crystal clear over the past few decades that this is the case. But, as feminist and social science researchers have urged us to get beyond the “menopause as death” or “menopause as problem” perspectives, it seems that we’re not making much progress in thinking differently or more broadly about this transition. As I read the articles on menopause leading to more breast cancer risk, risk of brain aneurysm, and risk of weight gain, it is reaffirmed in my mind that we’ve made very little progress in broadening the dialogue (at least the published and mainstream dialogue) on this important life stage.

Sure, this life stage is filled with problems, risks, and interesting situations, but what life stage isn’t? Isn’t there published research coming out on ANYTHING ELSE about menopause? I want to read about something different! Readers, feel free to comment about any other interesting stuff you’ve read about menopause recently because I for one am searching for new takes on menopause. Seriously, people, was there nothing else new last week on menopause? As we head into 2013 I’m hoping for something new.

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Posted in Communication, Media, Menopause, Menstruation, New Research | 7 Comments »

Understanding Research: Buyer Beware

April 2nd, 2012 by Paula Derry

xkcd.com // CC 2.5

I certainly believe that scientific research is important.  Research uncovers new knowledge and prunes away facts that are not accurate.  However, in our society, research is also a coinage to justify views of reality. A Biblical scholar might invoke a sentence from the Bible before holding forth on his own interpretation or opinions. In a similar manner, a scientific study might be cited or a scientist quoted to justify that something is real before jumping off into one’s own thoughts, opinions, theories, or justifications.  If a scientific result can be invoked, we can believe that something is true. Is there an unconscious?  Freud said so, but he’s out of date.  Are we intrinsically social beings?  Evolutionary theorists argue. Does meditation really result in an altered state of consciousness?  If I present results from research, preferably using a high tech measurement like a brain scan, or if I can come up with a theory that uses words like “neural nets” or “neurotransmitters,” then I can believe all of these things.

What’s wrong with this? Isn’t this science doing its job of uncovering truth?  There are two things wrong with this. One is that not all knowledge is scientific knowledge.  The second is that scientific results are often portrayed inaccurately in our society.

With regard to the first point, I’ll just give a few examples.  von Bertalanffy, a systems theory scientist, wrote that even a physicist will chase his (sic) hat when the wind blows it without knowing the mathematics determining which way the hat will blow.   Einstein famously said that not everything that was important could be measured, and not everything that could be measured was important.

But what I really want to talk about here is the second point.  We are inundated with scientific results in newspapers, websites, and other places. Most often, a brief summary of research is followed by broad generalizations about what the research means.   However, the outcome of research is not simple facts. Experiments are complicated things that must be evaluated by readers and understood in context.  When I was a graduate student in psychology, every class included practice in critiquing research.

To understand research, certain mathematical ideas are important.  “Statistical significance” is important to both accurate interpretation of research and to inaccurate or misleading reports. If you’ll bear with me, I’ll run through what I mean. Suppose you have a coin. If you toss the coin 100 times, it will come up heads about 50 times, not exactly 50 but close. Why?  That’s just the way the world we live in works, there are laws of probability. Since there are two possible outcomes—heads or tails—each will come up about half the time. If I toss my coin 100 times and it always comes up heads, I’ll probably conclude the coin is biased.  Why?  Because it just doesn’t happen; it’s extremely improbable, in the world we live in, that an honest coin would do this.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Language, Menstruation, New Research, PMS | 7 Comments »

Fog Warning Ahead

March 29th, 2012 by Heather Dillaway

As I embark on my 40th year I look ahead to menopause. I guess there is a good chance I’m approaching some foggy years. Brain fog, that is.

In the past week a flurry of online news articles review new research findings on the “brain fog” that many perimenopausal women experience. The brain fog is more easily understood as a slight memory problem, if you take the time to read through the various news stories. A new study analyzed how 75 individual women, aged 40 to 60, rated their memory performance based on factors like how often they forgot details and how serious their forgetfulness was. Researchers also gathered information about the women’s overall health, mood and hormone levels, as well as other menopausal symptoms, and tried to figure out the extent to which this “brain fog” exists. According to news reports, about 41 percent of the women in the study reported having forgetfulness that was “serious,” and those who felt that their memory problems were serious were more likely to score poorly on tests of working memory and attention. Some women who rated their memory problems as serious also reported some depression and other symptoms like hot flashes and sleeping problems. Other researchers suggest that the memory problems women experience are related to changing levels of estrogen in a woman’s body at menopause, but interestingly this new study did not find links to changing hormone levels.

The whole notion of “brain fog” is interesting, and I am suspicious of it as a strictly menopausal symptom. What about the brain fog we all experience when we’re tired or sick or just way too busy? Defining brain fog as a “menopausal” (really, perimenopausal) symptom further defines middle-aged women as somehow less than functional and set them up to be taken less seriously.

Putting this issue aside, though, what I actually find most interesting about all of the news coverage of this study is just how different each report of the study is. I am reminded that we should all be careful of which report we read about a study. For example, the first article I read on this study was placed in the Los Angeles Times and focused on the possible connections between menopausal brain fog, depression, and dementia. I was left feeling like the author of the article inferred that all menopausal women might have depression or dementia and that they should seek treatment. After reading this article I was angry because I felt as if I had been warned that midlife brain fog was the beginning of an inevitable decline for all women. Then I read a WedMD piece that simply described the study and did not concentrate on depression, dementia, or the need for treatment, and I wasn’t really sure what to make of the research study. Finally I read an article by a HealthDay reporter which quoted one of our own, SMCR member Nancy Wood, who reminds readers that “a number of other stressors in life, from work to taking care of children and parents, that pile up around the same time as menopause can hinder memory and ability to concentrate.” In addition, this article’s author states that “memory problems are not necessarily an early sign of dementia” and cognitive ability is regained after other perimenopausal symptoms subside. This third article concluded that the research study is helpful because findings suggest that brain fog is real – that women aren’t crazy – but that it is normal and not that detrimental to women’s long-term cognitive abilities.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Communication, Health Care, Hormones, Internet, Language, Literature, Media, Menopause, Menstruation, New Research | 3 Comments »

Talking Makes Menopause Better — Anyone Surprised?

March 1st, 2012 by Heather Dillaway

Adapted from a photo by Ed Yourdon // CC 2.0

The results are in: if you talk to your friends more during menopause, then your menopausal symptoms will bother you less. A study reported in The Telegraph last week suggests that talking either lessens women’s symptoms or helps them cope better (or both). In one study, women undergoing breast cancer treatments who also participated in “talking cure group therapy” as part of a study at Kings’ College in London “coped much better” with menopausal symptoms. Half of the women in this study were asked to participate in workshops with other women for six weeks. Women in the study were encouraged to talk about signs and symptoms of menopause, such as hot flashes (or hot “flushes” in the UK) and night sweats; they were taught techniques for eliminating “negative thoughts” and stress as well. Researchers touted this “talking cure group therapy” as giving “people the mental tools to tackle problems more positively” and led to “improvement” in symptoms. The author of the article suggests that non-medical approaches to symptom relief not only work but also could be growing in popularity among women who can’t or don’t want to use prescribed hormone therapies.

This is not unlike what I’ve found in my own studies of menopause and what plenty of other feminist scholars have found about women’s experiences of reproductive health more generally. Women who have support networks and/or who talk to other women about their experiences do indeed feel better about their own experiences and do gain some symptom relief (or, at the very least, coping strategies) just from talking to people. Indeed, even women with severe symptoms can get relief from sharing and talking. SMCR’s very own Jerilynn Prior and Christine Hitchcock have also done studies of how women will rate the severity of their hot flashes differently once they hear other women talk about theirs. Hearing and then knowing that people around you are (a) experiencing the same thing and then (b) might have suggestions for how you could navigate the experience always helps. This isn’t specific to women’s health – anyone experiencing any bodily event, symptom, or process will probably feel better if they talk to others. And of course we could go on from there – anyone experiencing anything confusing or hard or long in duration will probably benefit from talking to others. Anyone who has failed a math test or survived a hard relationship knows that.

The question I have is, isn’t it sad that this is a finding? Shouldn’t we all know that talking to others is better for our health and our sanity? I’m as much of a culprit as anyone else: I don’t talk to anyone anymore. I’m too busy. I barely see my kids or partner, let alone tell people how I feel about menstruation, whether I really feel “done” having kids, whether I think menopause is near, whether I feel reproductively healthy (or healthy in any aspect of my life for that regard), etc.  Maybe some of you are much better than me about talking to others, but it’s pretty bad when major research journals have to remind us in their published findings that talking is good for us.

Feminist scholars have already documented the medicalization of women’s reproductive health and the fact that women now typically consult doctors as the “experts” on reproductive health and, by default, no longer trust themselves or other women for advice. Thus, to some extent, talking is stifled by the medicalization of women’s health experiences. But, ironically, now medical journals are reporting that we should talk more? Seems like we’ve made it full circle and women should consult other women as the real “experts” again.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Communication, Menopause, Menstruation, New Research | 6 Comments »

Alongside Scientists Exploring Why Women Menstruate

January 19th, 2012 by Alexandra Jacoby

I read a blog post about a paper (that I have not read). The post is “Why do women menstruate?“ by PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, blogging at Pharyngula. The paper is “The evolution of menstruation: A new model for genetic assimilation: Explaining molecular origins of maternal responses to fetal invasiveness.” by Emera D, Romero R, Wagner G.

I’m not a scientist and don’t routinely have access to papers like these. Usually, by the time ideas raised  in them reach me, they would be solid-feeling facts, authoritative and done — not inspiring questions and wonderings that I can pursue in my way.

They might be about the products that were developed in response to, or as a side-effect of the research, or maybe I’d hear about newly discovered dangers to my health.

Rarely, do I get to be in on the “why.” To think about the story of it–my body–alongside the scientists when they are exploring what might be the origin of, or deciding factors in, why we are the way we are. As human bodies.

(So, thank you, internet. Thank you, bloggers).

"The anatomy of the human gravid uterus exhibited in figures" by William Hunter, Public domain.

This paper (as I understand it via the Pharyngula post) focuses on the conflicting interests of the relationship between a fetus and the woman carrying it: the fetus acting for its survival and development, and the woman as agent for her life, health, and the ability, should she want to, to carry more pregnancies to term.

The research notes a difference among mammals who spontaneously initiate the process of building up the uterine lining, regardless of whether there’s an implanted embryo (like us, with our monthly-ish menstrual cycles) and those who build up the lining only when triggered by an embryo, and asks why do we do this? Why not wait until you need it?

The answer seems to be because you won’t be ready if you wait. Maybe it’s like having guests over last-minute. You might have food and drink enough for all, but you might not. And, you might have stuff laying around that is more personal than you want guests to see. Or, maybe it’s all fine enough. Last-minute is frequently doable, but it’s better to be prepared. Prepared gives you options. Prepared gives you a chance to make it really comfortable and welcoming. Prepared sets you up to have the experience you wanted to have.

Women menstruate to be body-ready to handle the situation of pregnancy in the context of their whole lives, and their family’s whole life.

The monthly preparation of the uterine lining establishes optimal conditions for the relationship, the active give-and-take, between woman and fetus. And, while there are conflicting interests in this shared space of blood and nutrients, I see it as like any relationship between any things living — on a continuum of interaction between self-expressing creatures, cells or trees. There are intricate, elegant processes taking place to make it all happen. There is preparation and desire on both parts — blood, nutrients, and soil, air and water being exchanged and used up among us. There are points of contact, expected and understood, or surprising, or painful, or deadly. We’re in it together for better or worse. All of our relationships are active. Everything is interrelated and contingent and based on routines and cycles. On those we build, change, evolve…

I think only we are impatient about it — want it done  faster, with less work and no mess. The stuff of life is messy, though.

For me, when I understand the purpose of the mess, the effort required, the time and attention, become meaningful — I am able to recognize participants (rather than adversaries), to value the work we do and remember the vision and desire that infuse it all.

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Posted in Menstruation, New Research | 2 Comments »

On Menopause Definitions

December 28th, 2011 by Paula Derry

Guest Post by Paula S. Derry, Ph.D.

In a recent blog post, Heather Dillaway commented on the uncertainty, confusion, and frustration she felt as a menopause researcher, given the lack of consensus about the most basic aspects of the menopause transition. Researchers don’t agree about their definitions, and can’t even agree on what needs to be defined. She asked for reactions to her entry; I’ve found that my reaction has grown into this separate post.

Fire in the Head by Beate Knappe // CC 2.0

I, unlike Heather, am not a sociologist. I’m a health psychologist. My training and current work include analyzing, critiquing, and making sense of experimental research and theories. I have also developed workshops for community women and for professionals whose aim is to provide health-promoting information and decision-making heuristics. I have given a lot of thought to the issues that Heather raises, and this is as far as I’ve gotten with them.

To me, there are many layers of issues involved. The first is the fact that the science — about the physiology of menopause and the processes leading up to it — is limited and incomplete. Part of the reason that professionals disagree about whether the life course of menstruation has five stages or seven, or why women have hot flashes, or even why women have a menopause, is that we don’t actually know. We simply do not have the scientific facts. We don’t understand what the underlying process is or how it works. Given this uncertainty, professionals must make judgments about how to define terms and what their hypotheses (or best guesses) are about underlying processes. A second fact, along with our limited real knowledge, is the tenacity with which professionals assert their judgments and argue against competing views. People disagree and they hold strongly to their positions—about language and the facts. To me, it makes sense to have definitions of stages of menstrual life that are objective and easily measurable (like the STRAW staging system) for researchers who need to compare results with each other. It doesn’t make sense to assert that this system, based on expert opinion and not on experimental facts, actually defines when a particular stage really “begins.” It makes sense to say that experimental research supports the idea that changes in the thermoregulatory center of the hypothalamus are important processes if you’re trying to understand hot flashes.  It does not make sense to conclude that these brain changes in themselves explain hot flashes; other factors must also be involved.

I think another source of confusion is that menopause is not one thing, but many. It is a circumscribed biological change (lack of periods and what leads up to them physiologically) and also a psychosociocultural matter. We have a term for when girls begin to menstruate (menarche), a separate term for the larger biological changes of which menarche is a part (puberty), and another term for the biopsychosociocultural changes of which puberty is a part (adolescence). I think these kinds of distinctions are confused with regard to understanding menopause in part because there is cultural confusion about midlife (or mature adulthood or whatever term you use) as a life stage.  There is no cultural consensus about this stage of life.  And, indeed, this isn’t surprising.  Some women are planning retirement while others are training for a new job or career.  Some are grandmothers while others are raising a young child.  My opinion, also, is that we as a culture have a paucity of concepts of mature, responsible adulthood and what it means.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Communication, Language, Menopause, Philosophy | 4 Comments »

Everything you need to know about the menstrual cycle in less than 3000 words

December 26th, 2011 by Chris Bobel

The Research Pile by Krista Kennedy // CC 2.0

What happens when get a bunch of interdisciplinary menstrual cycle researchers together and give them each a topic or two and a word count?

 

You get a pithy document called “The Menstrual Cycle: A Feminist Lifespan Perspective” available to anyone who needs to put their finger on the state of menstrual cycle research today. Readers of re:Cycling know there is deep complexity swirling around the menstrual cycle (indeed, that’s why this blog exists!)  so it sure is helpful to have a resource that collects the key info in one tidy place.

The Fact Sheet –four pages of content and two pages of must-have references—was collaboratively written by a team of members of the Society for Menstrual Research. It is available for download here [pdf]. Sections include menstrual attitudes and representations, menarche, peri/menopause, menstrual care, problems associated with menstruation and more. Something for everybody.

 

The Fact Sheet is commissioned and published by Sociologists for Women and Society (SWS), who, since 2002, has been publishing several fact sheets each year on topics ranging from Women & Size to Title IX to Women, Poverty and Welfare Reform. These resources are immensely helpful to scores of folks—teachers, activists, clinicians, the interminably curious—anyone , really, who needs concise accurate info.

 

Impress your friends. Go grab the Fact Sheet!

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Posted in Menarche, Menopause, Menstruation, New Research | 1 Comment »

Food insecurity is associated with later puberty

December 20th, 2011 by Chris Hitchcock

Many girls in Africa have insecure access to food, that is, they worry about getting enough food, and they sometimes eat less than they want, or go without food. There are two theories about how this might affect the onset of menstruation (menarche). One is that the limitations in energy and nutrition might slow development, resulting in a later menarcheal age. The other evolutionary theory is that early life stressors trigger a shift in so-called life history strategy, leading to accelerated development and an earlier menarche. In a recent article in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, researchers from Ethiopia, Belgium and the USA presented data from the first two years of the Jimma Longitudinal Family Survey of Youth to contrast these two theories. The survey was conducted in southwest Ethiopia, sampling across rural, urban and small town areas and including boys and girls. Data about the household and the girls’ experience of food insecurity were assessed by questionnaire in the first year, and in the second year girls were asked whether and how old they were when they first menstruated. 900 girls, with an average age of 14.8 at baseline, participated in both of the first two years of the five year study.

Overall, girls who reported some degree of food insecurity (n=225/900) were similar in age, region (urban, semi-urban, rural), and nutritional status (whether they were short for age). However, they were more likely to be in a male-headed household, tended to be in middle income rather than high income households, and reported more domestic work than those reporting food security. Overall, girls with moderate to severe food insecurity were significantly less likely to have undergone menarche. The estimate of the age at menarche was one year older for Ethiopian girls who have insecure access to food.

Girls in the developing world experience menarche at an older age than those in the developed world, and, with development, other countries are experiencing the secular change of earlier age at menarche. In this study, the estimated age at menarche was younger in urban centres (14) than in semi-urban or urban areas (15), and girls in high income households had an earlier menarche, suggesting that improved food security may be part of the puzzle explaining these changes.

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Posted in Menarche, Menstruation, New Research | 3 Comments »

Menstrual Synchrony: Do Girls Who Go Together Flow Together?

September 8th, 2011 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest Post by Harriet Hall, M.D.

When women live together, do their menstrual cycles tend to synchronize? It’s been a long time since I first heard that claim. I didn’t believe it, for a number of reasons. I had never observed it myself, I saw no plausible mechanism to explain how it could happen, I thought the statistics to prove it would be problematic and complicated, and I suspected that confirmation bias and selective memory might have persuaded people that a spurious correlation existed. How often do women say “Oh, look! We’re having our periods at the same time”? How often do they say “Oh, look! We’re having our periods at different times”?  Now that many years have passed since my first encounter, I thought it would be fun to revisit the claim and see whether science has supported it or rejected it.

A perusal of PubMed and other Internet sources left me confused and amused.

Synchrony Is Difficult to Define

Consider that the normal menstrual cycle can vary from 21 to 35 days and can last 2 to 7 days. Consider that some women are regular and consistent, while others have variable patterns, even “regularly irregular” patterns. Consider that anovulatory cycles and other conditions often lead to menstrual irregularities that fall outside the normal range. Consider that strenuous exercise and other life events can affect menstruation. Put all that together, and you can see that often cycles will overlap simply by chance, and that it is difficult to define synchrony.

If two women have regular 28 day cycles and 7 day periods, the maximum number of days they could not overlap is 14. On average, their periods will be 7 days apart, and half the time they will be closer.

How could a 21 day cycle ever “synchronize” with a 35 day cycle? For example if you compare a woman with a regular 35 day cycle who starts on January 1 to a woman with a 21 day cycle who starts two weeks later on January 15, their next periods will coincide almost perfectly (Feb 4-10 and Feb 5-11) but they will diverge after that. Would it count if the last day of one woman’s period overlapped with the first day of another woman’s? What if half the periods coincide and half don’t? The whole thing is problematic.

What Does the Literature Say?

It all started with Martha McClintock. In a paper published in Nature in 1971 she found that “social interaction” in a college dormitory setting could have a strong effect on the menstrual cycle. A follow-up study in 1998 tended to support the hypothesis that pheromones were involved: smelling armpit secretions of other women could either lengthen or shorten cycles depending on what part of her cycle the donor was in.

I’ll summarize rather than trying to cover everything published on the subject.  A Scientific American article did a good job of reviewing the literature as of 2007. Suffice it to say that about half the published papers support the synchronization hypothesis and half don’t; and the half that do have been harshly criticized for their poor design and poor statistical analyses. So we haven’t reached a consensus, but it’s looking more likely that synchronization is a myth.

A study in a nursing journal assumes that synchronization occurs and addresses the subjective meaning of the experience to

assist nurses to understand the holistic aspects of this everyday experience of women and to design effective strategies and techniques to help women gain knowledge about their cycle functions, promote healthy attitudes toward menstruation as a process, and acknowledge and honor this natural, healthy aspect of their menstrual cycle.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Menstruation | 3 Comments »

New versions of menstrual suppression drugs on the way?

August 4th, 2011 by Elizabeth Kissling

Successful tests on rhesus monkeys are a long way from clinical trials on women, but this is interesting to those of us following the conversations and debates about cycle-stopping contraceptives: new research testing progestin antagonists indicates that the drug can be successful in suppressing menstruation without necessarily suppressing ovulation. Another variant of the drug can suppress both menstruation and ovulation.

Dr. Robert Brenner, who is the lead researcher conducting these studies in the Division of Reproductive Sciences at Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, notes that this has potential beyond just a new lifestyle drug:

I would emphasize that we are not talking here only about lifestyle choices but also about the potential to bring relief to the many women who suffer years of misery from distressing complaints such as endometriosis, and painful and excessive monthly bleeding. In fact, excessive bleeding is one of the major reasons that women undergo hysterectomy, and this treatment may also reduce the need for this surgical procedure, with all its attendant risks and costs.

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Posted in Health Care, New Research, Pharmaceutical | No Comments »

New Collection of Research on Menstruation and Representation

March 11th, 2011 by Elizabeth Kissling

A special issue of the scholarly journal Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal has just been published, featuring several pieces about menstruation, media representation, and the ways we talk about it. You can see the table of contents here, as well as purchase individual articles (or the whole collection, for $146.17). Several of these papers were presented at the 2009 meeting of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, and the special issue also includes several new poems, visual work, and book reviews.

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Posted in New Research | 2 Comments »

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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.