Why Child Bearing Is Healthy
>From a purely biological perspective, bearing children can be
considered the most important reason for a woman's existence.
For that matter, the same could be said about men, since both
sexes are, in effect, disposable packages of genetic material.
We die, but our genes continue on immortally.
With increasing population pressure and modern independent
lifestyles (unlike the family farm where children were almost a
necessity), procreation has become an option that is
increasingly declined or at least significantly restricted. But
with these choices women take themselves out of a natural
biological role. Additionally, treating the breast as an
ornament rather than a feeding organ - by opting for synthetic
formulas - also removes women from a natural biological function.
When these choices are coupled with the use of contraceptive
hormones, hormone replacement therapy, an increasing load of
estrogenic pollutants in the environment and food, and a diet
that has veered significantly from its natural design, the
formula for hormonal pandemonium, metabolic dysfunction, and
disease is in place. The result is early menses in children,
infertility, abnormal and erratic menstrual cycles, cervical
dysplasia, fibroids, endometrial cancer, breast cancer,
premenstrual syndrome, dramatic mood swings and depression,
osteoporosis, and other symptoms of abnormal menopause: hot
flashes, psychological problems, decreased libido, and thinning
of the vaginal wall.
This is a difficult problem with no easy solution. If women
would have as many children as they are capable of, nurse them
for years as they are designed to, eat natural foods, and live
in a more pristine environment, most of these modern health
problems would disappear.
If money flowed out of our tap we would not have economic
problems either, right?
The desire to limit families may soon not even be an option. We
either curtail population growth or we will saw through the
branch we all sit on. Population is the engine that ultimately
drives all environmental woes. We live on a finite planet with
finite resources, but we have an infinite ability to breed. We
either live within the limits of Earth's sustainable resources
or we will destroy ourselves. Having children may be a natural
and healthy process, but can be a deadly game for sustainable
life on Earth.
So we have a conundrum. Women need to fulfill their biological
reproductive role to achieve metabolic balance and health, but
if they do so unlimited, the health of life on Earth is
jeopardized.
In an attempt to solve this dilemma, women have turned to the
quick fix of pharmaceutical synthetic hormones. Hormones that
control conception, hormones that control abnormal menstrual
cycles, and hormones that fix menopause. It is an overly
simplistic solution to a complex problem.
The saying, "Don't mess with Mother Nature" is particularly
applicable when dosing the body with hormones. Since the 1940's
when estrogen therapy became popular, hundreds of thousands of
women have succumbed to cancer. For example, a woman is nearly
13 times more likely to get endometrial cancer, and at nearly a
30% increased risk of breast cancer when she takes estrogen.
Recently, researchers have identified the two top preventable
breast cancer risks: oral birth control pills and estrogen
replacement therapy.
For those who justify the use of estrogen for the benefits of
decreased risk of osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease,
consider that proper exercise, diet and lifestyle choices can
have the same beneficial effect without the potential
consequence of cancer.
How have women specifically put themselves outside of their
natural context to make themselves more susceptible to cancers?
The average mom gives birth to about two infants. Although this
is an intelligent number from the standpoint of population
control, it is unnatural in that by not continuing to have
pregnancies and to nurse (which stops ovulations) she will
ovulate an incredible 438 times during her lifetime.
On the other hand, a woman in the primitive natural setting who
may not even know what causes pregnancy or how to prevent it
even if they wanted to, would have started menstruating and
ovulating at age twelve and would have delivered nine babies and
breast-fed them over the course of her reproductive career.
Breast-feeding can continue for children in a totally natural
setting for up to five or more years of age. The combination of
pregnancy along with breast-feeding in the premodern setting
would have decreased the number of ovulations that a primitive
mother would have had to about nine.
This means that today women cycle through their menstrual
periods an abnormal number of times, subjecting their bodies to
surges of estrogen 50 times greater than our primitive ancestors
living in a natural setting.
Many cancers of women are sensitive to high levels of female
hormones.
For example, breast cancer is sensitive to estrogen. In dogs,
simply removing the ovaries can often prevent or halt the
progress of mammary cancer. Tamoxifen in humans is used to block
estrogen activity within the mammary glands and thus is believed
to exert its protective effect in this way. (This pharmaceutical
agent can, however, increase the risk of uterine cancer to about
the same degree that the risk of breast cancer is reduced!) The
resting periods of lower estrogen levels that women experienced
in the premodern setting served a protective effect to spare
organs and tissues from cancer. Women who nurse for a total
period of time of even as little as two years are known to have
a decreased incidence of mammary cancer.
This excess ovulation hypothesis is the likely explanation for
the tragic phenomenon of modern female cancers. When humans
decide to flout and repudiate nature by interfering with natural
biological design, disease will always be the consequence.
If the problem is a departure from nature, then the solution is
a return to it. Here are some options:
1.Refer to the Wysong Optimal Health Program for guidelines on
life choices that can enhance overall health and thus hormonal
health (http://www.wysong.net/PDFs/ohp.pdf).
2.Emphasize fresh raw foods in the diet and avoid processed
foods as much as possible.
3.Eliminate hydrogenated oils and refined sugars. Hydrogenated
oils displace healthful dietary fats and have been shown to be
carcinogenic, and sugars can stimulate a rise in estrogens.
4.Try to use organic foods as much as possible and avoid
synthetic materials in cosmetics, at home and in the workplace
to help reduce exposure to environmental estrogens.
5.Do not attempt "low fat" or "low cholesterol" fad diets that
often create dependence upon processed carbohydrates and
seriously reduce important natural dietary fats and essential
fatty acids.
6.Increase the consumption of natural vegetable foods containing
phytoestrogens which tend to counteract estrogens.
7.Avoid hormone medications if at all possible.
8.Explore natural birth control measures.
9.Nurse your babies for as long as you can. Modern life presents
many choices, freedoms and rights. Tinkering with child bearing,
however, is a choice that is not without consequences. Women
need to be aware and take the steps necessary to make sure the
choices they make do not also bring with them the increased risk
of serious modern diseases.