Women Reproduction Health

Last week, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has published a list of preventative health service for women, in which they included the recommendations of free of charge contraception for women requiring them.

The recommendations are supported by many organizations, such as Planned Parenthood as they consider it a step in the right direction towards minimizing the instance of unwanted pregnancies in the United States. However, people in the religious community disagree and are in fierce opposition to the idea.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops even spoke out their objection during the Natural Family Planning Awareness Week, from July 24 through July 30, by saying that the Catholic Church opposes all forms of birth control and favoring the Natural Family Planning. They even offered classes on Natural Family Planning to educate people how to carefully tracks a woman’s menstrual cycle in order to aid or prevent pregnancy. Read more!

Based on the latest research published in the British Journal of Cancer, other than alcohol and cigarettes, weight has the strongest effect on the sex hormones that can increase breast cancer risk in post menopausal women. The statement was made by Dr Gillian Reeves from the University of Oxford, UK along with her colleagues, and all members of the Endogenous Hormones and Breast Cancer Collaborative Group.

Reeves said that changes in hormone levels might explain the relation of established risk factors such as obesity with breast cancer risk.

In the study funded by Cancer Research UK, Reeves and her colleagues collected and analyzed data of nearly 6,300 post-menopausal women who took part in 13 different studies. The data were used to examine how levels of sex hormones like Oestradiol, Free oestradiol, Oestrone, Androstenedione, Testosterone, Free testosterone, are known to Read more!

Female genital circumcision in some parts of the world, including Indonesia is still performed as part of several cultural or religious beliefs. But unlike the male circumcision, the procedure actually doesn’t have any health benefit to those who undergo it. That is why rather than calling it as circumcision, the act is also known as female genital mutilation.

Women rights activists from the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) urged the Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih to immediately revoke a ministerial regulation against female circumcision as it legitimizes violence against Indonesian women. It may also neglect the women’s abilities to fully exercise their fundamental rights on reproductive health and freedom considering the cruel circumcision techniques practiced in several regions in Indonesia.

The circumcision removes the clitoris totally and this condition will badly affect the women’s reproductive health and Read more!

Regarding infertility, there are a couple facts you need to know before judging whether any of the spouses is responsible for not producing an offspring. There are actually two conditions must be fulfilled in order to have a successful conceiving, namely fertility and the right moment of having intercourse. So here are some facts regarding those conditions you ought to know.

Chances of infertility
Both men and women have the chances of infertility. According to report, about 20 percent of infertility cases are caused by men, 40 percent by women, and 10 percent by both men and women. As for the rest of it (30 percent), the reasons are unexplained.

The life term of sperms Read more!

The latest generation of oral contraceptive pill, which is marketed in Australia with the name of Yaz and Yasmin has recently being warned for its usage by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) – the Australia’s regulatory agency for medical drugs and devices.

The warning followed the previously issued warning by the British Medical journal which states that women who consume the fourth generation pill are more likely to develop life-threatening blood clots.

According to studies, the pills which contain drospirenone (a synthetic progestin that is typically used in birth control) such as Yasmin and Yaz, when taken two to three times would more likely make the consumer suffer a blood clot compared to those who take other oral contraceptives.
Read more!

Hormone imbalance is a condition where all the hormones in our body don’t work together properly. Like an orchestra, if one part of the instruments is not functioning properly, it will be impossible to create a symphony, as the melody produced is out of tune.

This condition can happen as the result of the soft tissue glands’ malfunctioning as we forced them to produce hormone longer than ever in order to double our life expectancy. Beside of that, the declining levels of hormones in our bodies can also be caused by the increasing of stress, lack of proper fitness as well as bad nutritional intake.

The further result of hormonal imbalance can indicate to the condition of menopause, including perimenopause and postmenopause; surgical menopause, thyroid health and adrenal fatigue. But before it ends up that way, you should be aware to symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats, weight gain, insomnia, fatigue, low libido, vaginal dryness, PMS, Read more!

Maintaining physical beauty is always desired by any women as we realize that the older we become, the more sagging our skin will be. The skin will sag nearly everywhere, including the vaginal area; especially if you have been pregnant. Therefore besides of face-lift, there is also a term called vaginal-lift or more popularly known as vaginal rejuvenation.

There are several methods of vaginal rejuvenation, they are:

Non-Surgical Vaginal Rejuvenation – This method uses facial fillers such as Sculptra which is injected to the mons pubis or the fat pad which surrounds the vagina that has lost volume. Sculptra promotes natural collagen growth over time and help to fill the volume loss. It can also be injected into the labia majora or minora to restore the sagging skin at the area.

Vaginal Fat Transfer – this method is also non-surgical. It uses the fat from another part of the body which is removed via Read more!

According to a new study led by researchers at the University of Toronto, ovulation significantly improves a woman’s ability to judge a man’s sexual orientation. As told by Nicholas Rule, an assistant professor of psychology at University of Toronto and the lead researcher on the study, when ovulating women would pay attention to cues relevant for mating. And as women have a higher chance of getting pregnant they seem to be more aware of the cues in the environment that would attend to the condition.

The strange ovulation phenomena of women have actually been uncovered in recent years as scientists track how the female cycle impacts mating practices. Other research has suggested that ovulating women emit a scent that is more attractive to men and unconsciously flirtier as an attempt to outdo their rivals.

As for the gaydar (gay-radar) study, scientists tracked the fertility cycles of 40 heterosexual female undergraduate students and asked them to judge 80 photos of men’s faces, in which half of them were self-identified as gay and the other half were straight. Read more!

According to American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist as reported on Reuters Health, the long term contraception called Intra-Uterine Device (IUD) and the contraceptive skin implants, are the safest and most effective birth control for women in productive age.

IUD is made of plastic tool which wraps a copper wire with a T-shape. The tool helps inhibiting pregnancy by preventing the convergence of sperm and egg cells by stopping the sperm’s journey to the fallopian tubes, or by changing the uterus route so that the mature egg cells cannot be fertilized.

Based on the types, IUD can be used effectively within a period of 5-10 years without replacement. Its shape is small enough that gynecologists can easily insert it to the uterus without any difficult procedure.
Read more!

Some people might ask why women easily experience certain mood changing. Sometimes they easily get upset by anything that should not be a major problem at all. According to experts, this has something to do with serotonin.

Serotonin is the hormone which affects happiness, satisfaction, improves sleep quality and reduces one’s appetite. The low level of serotonin is normally associated with depression.

When a brain-scanning performed to both male and female participants of a study, it was found that women’s brain receptors are different from men’s. The receptor cells in men’s brain can respond to the flow of serotonin and nutrients more quickly than women’s brain receptor cells.

Another study conducted by scientists of University of Montreal also found that the numbers of serotonin in men’s brain are 52 Read more!