[Leslie Carol Botha: According to the study ..."Forty percent of respondents  said birth control was not important because when it is your time to get pregnant, it will happen." How misinformed can one be - unless of course women want their lives changed forever by an unplanned pregnancy or an STD.]

60 Percent Of Young Adults Misinformed About Birth Control As Abstinence-Only Education Flourishes: Study

International Business Times
By Ashley Portero
May 14, 2012 1:08 PM EDT

Sixty percent of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 may not truly understand how proper use of contraception can prevent pregnancy, according to a new study from the Guttmacher Institute, which reports abstinence-only sex education may be leaving young adults with a subpar understanding of sexual health.

After quizzing a nationally representative group of 1,800 unmarried women and men in that age group, the study,  published in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, concluded that more than half of the respondents received low scores on contraceptive knowledge, with 60 percent reportedly underestimating the effectiveness of birth control pills.

The quiz asked respondents to choose “true” or “false” answers for basic statements such as “all IUDs are banned from use in the United States” or “condoms have an expiration date.” More than half of the men and a quarter of the women received either a D or F on the quiz.

Although a majority of the respondents — 69 percent of women and almost half of the men — agreed they were “committed to avoiding pregnancy,” they seemed to question whether contraceptive devices such as condoms or birth control pills were an effective way to achieve that goal. A considerable 40 percent of respondents said contraception doesn’t matter because “when it is your time to get pregnant, it will happen.”

Those results may be particularly concerning since women between the ages of 18 and 29 have higher rates of unintended pregnancies than any other age group, the Guttmacher Institute reports.The study, which found that variables such as a fear of side effects (as a result of contraceptives) and mistrust of government’s role in promoting contraception was associated with risky birth control practices, concluded that “programs to increase young adults’ knowledge about contraceptive methods and use are urgently needed.”

Article found on the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Blog -  re: Cycling

Read Full Article…

Read the complete article and related information at Study: Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Leaves Young Adults Misinformed About Birth Control

[Holy Hormones Honey! It appears that the objectification of women's bodies takes place even during childbearing - a sacred time in a family's life - especially for the mother and child.  Can you imagine how traumatized the mother and the newborn must be during a birth rape? Wonder if this has any bearing on the increasing anger violence in the world.  I think many women can relate to some sort of uncomfortable treatment during labor or when their legs were in stirrups.]

Is “Birth Rape” for Real?

Time
Healthland
By Bonnie Rochman
October 5, 2010

Giving birth is not a modest affair. After a lifetime spent covering up your privates, there they are, front and center, splayed out for any ole doc or nurse to see. As part of this no-holds-barred experience, aforesaid doc or nurse occasionally plunges an instrument (not of the musical variety) or his/her hand into an expectant mom’s vagina, feeling for the moment when new life is about to burst forth. That’s what they get paid to do.

At least in my own labors, I was always forewarned of the impending probing. But sometimes, according to writer Amity Reed, a woman isn’t asked permission. Sometimes, a woman isn’t treated respectfully on the L&D ward. When that happens, she feels violated, a sensation Reed controversially calls “birth rape.” In a post on Salon.com by Tracy Clark-Flory, Reed explains the phenomenon: “Fingers, hands, suction cups, forceps, needles and scissors … these are the tools of birth rape and they are wielded with as much force and as little consent as if a stranger grabbed a passer-by off the street and tied her up before having his way with her.”

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Read the complete article and related information at Birth Rape? Is this for Real?

[Holy Hormones Honey! First an article about IVF treatments and an increase in birth defects (posted May 7) and now an article on how the toxic drugs in the more expensive IVF injections affect the health of the mother and the baby.  Moral of the story? Perhaps we should not be injecting any toxic drugs - including vaccines -  into the body?]

Toxic drugs used in IVF ‘risk health of mothers and babies’

By Mario Ledwith

PUBLISHED: 19:50 EST, 13 May 2012

IVF procedures widely used in the UK are posing a ‘serious health risk’, healthcare experts have warned.

Clinics are using ‘aggressive’ practices that improve success rates but have led to treatments becoming one of the biggest causes of maternal deaths in England and Wales, they said.

There is increasing evidence that the most common treatment, which involves high doses of  toxic drugs to stimulate increased egg production in the ovaries, causes abnormalities in embryos and can damage a mother’s health.

Experts were told at a conference in Copenhagen that an alternative ‘mild’ treatment should be used instead of the more risky options common in the commercially driven UK market.

Read the complete article and related information at IVF Toxic Injections Risk Health of Mother and Baby

[Holy Hormones Honey! Body health and literacy are crucial to all aspects of our lives - especially during  pregnancy.  The build up of toxins in pregnant women's  bodies affects the fetal growth of their babies. Body detoxification  must be looked at prior to pregnancy.  It is a whole new world people.]

Premature Birth and a Healthy Digestive Tract: 4 Steps of Healing During Pregnancy and Beyond

Body Ecology
Posted May 8, 2012

Early this May, the first-ever national, regional, and global estimates of preterm birth were reported. It turns out that 15 million babies are born too soon, and over 7% of of these babies die shortly after birth. (1)

12 percent of babies born in the US are premature, leaving them at risk for brain injury, respiratory disorders, chronic infection, and even cerebral palsy.these babies die shortly after birth. (1)

Worldwide, premature birth is the second-leading cause of death in children under the age of five.

In order to combat the rise of preterm births in the United States, routine prenatal care checks for vaginal infection and for the presence of other inflammatory markers.

Inflammatory markers are biochemical signs of trouble. They can signal infection or the body struggling to respond to disease.

Both inflammatory markers and vaginal infection are established risk factors for preterm birth. Unfortunately, it turns out that the golden standard for a healthy birth canal may not be as clear-cut as previously thought.

In the United States, 1 out of 9 births are preterm.

At 37 weeks, a fetus is considered full term. If birth occurs any time before 37 weeks, this is what is known as a preterm birth.

12 percent of babies born in the US are premature, leaving them at risk for brain injury, respiratory disorders, chronic infection, and even cerebral palsy.

Preterm births are a health concern because those born prematurely usually face a lifetime of compromised health. (2) This could mean:

• Chronic infection
• Cerebral palsy
• Brain injury
• Respiratory disorders
• Hearing difficulties
• Learning and developmental disorders

About 12 percent of the babies born in the United States, or more than 1 in 9 births, are preterm.

While the United States preterm birth rate has declined over the last several years, this number is still too high. Many researchers and health care professionals are searching for reasons as to why so many babies are born too soon.

Dr. Craig Rubens, contributor to the most recent report on preterm births, says that this news “sounds the alarm that prematurity is an enormous global health problem that urgently demands more research and resources.”

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Read the complete article and related information at Healthy Digestive Tract Crucial to Full Term Pregnancy

[Leslie Carol Botha: More legalized rape on women. The study indicated that IUD's are a highly effective method of contraception after unprotected intercourse when inserted post-coitally. Unnecessary infliction of pain on women.  Those who have had IUD's will concur.  Mental/emotional stress plus physical pain.  Oh, yeah - another win situation for women. Sounds like they are marketing IUD's on a desperate demographic of women]

IUDs Effective as Emergency Contraception

MedPage Today

By Shalmali Pal, Contributing Editor, MedPage Today
Published: May 09, 2012

Intrauterine devices (IUDs) seem to be an effective method of emergency contraception, with a failure rate of less than one per thousand, according to a meta-analysis.

In a review of 35 years of data in which IUDs were inserted after unprotected intercourse, 99.86% of overall women did not become pregnant, reported Kelly Cleland, a research scientist at Princeton University in New Jersey, and colleagues in Human Reproduction.

Unintended pregnancy is a significant problem, with at least 36% of pregnancies worldwide and nearly half of pregnancies in the U.S. being unintended, the authors noted in their introduction. Emergency contraception is a popular method for preventing unwanted pregnancy, with oral methods such as levonorgestrel (Plan B) and ulipristal acetate (Ella or EllaOne), among the leading medications used.

Although IUDs are another option, negative experiences with the Dalkon Shield in the 1970s led to years of low IUD use, the authors pointed out. But one of the major advantages of copper IUDs is that after placement for emergency contraception, the device can be left in and will continue to prevent pregnancy for at least a decade.

Cleland’s group conducted a systematic review intended to provide a current estimate of the efficacy of IUDs as emergency contraception. They found 274 articles, in English and Chinese, published by August 2011 but narrowed the list to 42 studies published from 1979 to 2011.

The authors noted that they included studies published in Chinese because, according to China’s family planning commission, 53% of married women surveyed in 2009 who used contraception opted for an IUD.

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Read the complete article and related information at The IUD: Emergency Contraception & Birth Control Rolled Into One No Muss No Fuss

The informative interview with Cheryl Jazzar is now posted.  Please share this with any one suffering from postpartum depression – or depression, or anxiety disorders.

Join Leslie Carol Botha on Monday May, 14 on Holy Hormones Honey when she interviews Chery Jazzar, CEO and founder of WellPostpartum Consulting from Post Partum Depression to Majestic Motherhood – KRFC FM - http://krfcfm.org  from 6 to 7 pm MST. An important interview for mothers who are struggling with mood and anxiety problems .

Cheryl Jazzar is the founder of WellPostpartum Consulting.  She has supported thousands of new mothers since 1998. Her background is in psychology, counseling and women’s studies with a Master’s degree in Human Relations.

After pregnancy Cheryl suffered a severe postpartum depression and psychosis. She was hospitalized for six weeks and told she would have to remain on medication for life. She ended up divorcing and losing custody of her precious daughter, Angelica.

These experiences, and her remarkable healing, led her to develop a passion for helping women live the type of motherhood they were meant to have. She hasn’t used any medication in over 15 years and she and Angelica now live together after more than a decade apart!

Cheryl co-founded Postpartum Support of Oklahoma with Sheryl Cozad, MFA, which hosted the state’s first postpartum mood conference. She was trained in assessing and treating mood and anxiety disorders by Dr. Shoshana Bennett at The Postpartum Health Alliance.

Cheryl served as a volunteer state coordinator with Postpartum Support International for 8 years. She has also received training on weaning from medications to nutritional supplements by Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Charlie Popper.

Ms. Jazzar has provided numerous trainings and been interviewed for local and national television programs, including Know the Cause with Doug Kaufmann. She authored “Postpartum Emotional Health” in the book 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Health.

Cheryl lives in Norman, Oklahoma with her adorable family of six. Together they enjoy traveling, museums and exploring abandoned oil-boom towns.

Read the complete article and related information at Postpartum Wellness Expert Cheryl Jazzar on Holy Hormones Honey! May 14

[Holy Hormones Honey! Women using desperate women as surrogates. Wow. Wonder if the babies born from Indian women are healthier than white women.  Whatever would you tell your child? Maybe the wealthy are actually the desperate women.]

The designer baby factory: Eggs from beautiful Eastern Europeans, sperm from wealthy Westerners and embryos implanted in desperate women

By David Jones

PUBLISHED: 16:12 EST, 4 May 2012

Above a cheap mobile phone shop in a chaotic street in north Delhi, there is a grimy apartment whose peeling walls are decorated with photographs of adoring mothers nursing their babies.

The woman cooing at her child in the biggest portrait is beautiful, white and affluent-looking — in stark contrast to the flat’s five residents, four of whom are pregnant, while the other is being pumped full of hormones in the hope she will soon conceive. 

They are all uneducated, bare-footed, dirt-poor Indian women from outlying villages — and given the emotional turmoil that awaits them, one would have thought the very last thing they would wish to do is spend their enforced nine months of confinement here gazing upon images of maternal bliss.

Nominally, this forlorn place is a care home for surrogate mothers — at least that is how it is described by the company that runs it, Wyzax Surrogacy Consultancy, which is cashing in on India’s booming new babies-for-sale business.

It boasts of being the country’s first ‘one-stop shop for outsourced pregnancy’. In truth, though, it is nothing less than a baby factory; the end of a grim production line on which children are being designed to order for wealthy couples, mainly from Western countries including Britain, as if they were custom-built cars.

Indeed, as I have discovered during an eye-opening three-week investigation into India’s burgeoning, billion-dollar surrogacy industry, the motor-manufacturing analogy is all too apt.

Read the complete article and related information at India’s Surrogate Baby Factory – Westerners Implant Embryos in Desperate Women

[Holy Hormones Honey! I guess the message here is loud and strong - don't mess with Mother Nature.  Sadly chronic stress, environmental toxins and lack of nutrition have raised infertility rates for women and men.  Can we really expect an artificial method to save our souls? I think we are beginning to understand they anything artificial, or synthetic actually causes more problems in the long run.  I read somewhere else that the egg and sperm become altered in a petri dish - out of their natural environment.  I would imagine that the stronger the health of the man and woman having IVF and their sperm and egg have a better chance of sustaining an artificial environment.  What does that go back to?  Nutrition.  Pure and simple.  Hmmm - also read somewhere else that nutrients increased fertility. double Hmmm.]

IVF treatment used by 23,000 women in turmoil as shock report reveals that birth abnormalities have DOUBLED

• Survey shows injections used by 20,000 British couples a year reveals one in ten babies born with abnormalities
• Findings show all other IVF procedures are safe
• Clinics accused of profiting from more expensive procedure

By Jo Mcfarlane

PUBLISHED: 16:57 EST, 5 May 2012

Read the complete article and related information at Shocking News Over IVF and Rise in Birth Abnormalities

[Leslie Carol Botha: Guess this is where the adage comes in: 'Don't mess with Mother Nature.' If a woman is not ovulating - there is a reason an imbalance - or the mother is not healthy enough..... Nature does have its own balance and check system.  And if a woman's health is threatened or she is under chronic stress - adrenally fatigued - the first system in the body to shut down is reproduction.]  Makes sense.  But once again, we plow ahead thinking we can outsmart Mother Nature. At what cost?  Cancer in our children? Synthetic drugs are very bad for our body.]

Fertility drugs linked to cancer in children

BioEdge – bioethic news from around the world
by Jared Yee | 28 Apr 2012 |

Fertility drugs could more than double the risk of offspring developing childhood leukaemia, academics cautioned this week. Each year, tens of thousands of women in Britain undergo fertility treatment, which usually demands they take drugs to stimulate their ovaries to produce more eggs. Over 13,000 babies per year are born through assisted fertility technology. While no convincing evidence has hitherto emerged that fertility treatment leads to cancer, French researchers told a conference in London they believe ovarian stimulation drugs are associated with 2 kinds of childhood leukaemia.

Dr Jéremié Rudant, of the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health, in Villejuif, France, who led the research, said: “Previous studies have suggested a link between infertility treatments and acute childhood leukaemia, but there haven’t been many studies, most of them have been small, and they focused either on IVF or hormonal treatment. Our study was much larger and it’s the first time that a specific increased risk linked to fertility drugs has been found.”

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Read the complete article and related information at Cancer in Children Linked to Fertility Drugs

[Leslie Carol Botha: New bioethical debate questions the reality and the sanity of bringing children into poverty, sickness and suffering. One must pause to consider the question. Although this still smacks of eugenics - the question is vital to the state of our health and our children.]

Canadian bioethicist asks, why have children?

BioEdge – bioethic news from around the world
by Michael Cook | 20 Apr 2012 |

Is it good to have children? Most people would think so, but there is a range of views amongst utilitarian bioethicists. Rebecca Bennett, from the University of Manchester, believes that having children is just another irrational experience like taking recreational drugs or dancing. “In most cases we choose to bring to birth children on the basis of unquantifiable and unpredictable ideas of what they will bring to our lives,” she says.

Matti Häyry, a well-known Finnish bioethicist working in the UK, believes that it is both irrational and immoral because the child might encounter suffering in the course of its life, and “it is morally wrong to cause avoidable suffering to other people”.

The latest contribution to this debate comes from a Canadian feminist philosopher, Christine Overall. She published a book in February which is currently making a splash in bioethics circles, “Why Have Children?” Dr Overall is delighted to have two children of her own. But she believes that the reasons most people have them are mistaken.

First of all, most people believe that existence is good for a child. Not necessarily true. It is impossible to measure the merits of existence versus non-existence. Furthermore, if the existence of one child is good, two must be better, and three even better. Where would you know when to stop?

Another class of reasons are essentially selfish. Some people want to perpetuate their family name. Others want someone to care for them and comfort them in their old age. Many people feel that parenthood will bring them happiness. But all these reasons are wrong-headed, Overall says. A child cannot be regarded an instrument for someone else’s happiness. That is clearly immoral.

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Read the complete article and related information at Why Have Children? Questioned Posed by Canadian Bioethicist in New Book