Redefining Women's Health:

A Conversation with

Christiane Northrup, M.D.

by Jan Harrington

 

 

A visionary in women's health, Christiane Northrup, M.D. brings together the best of conventional, alternative and mind/body healing. Her acclaimed book, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, is a gateway to a deep understanding of health and well-being. She is co-founder of Women to Women, an innovative healthcare center for women in Yarmouth, Maine. Dr. Northrup is a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist.

 

VOW:You are helping to create a new model for women's wellness by urging us to tune in to the wisdom of our own bodies and to trust that symptoms have something to teach us about how we are living our lives.

 

Christiane Northrup: To heal ourselves, we must reenter our bodies and honor them. We must resist the temptation to always place the body and its needs last. I want to awaken that still, small, wise intuitive voice in all of us, the voice of our own body which we have been forced to ignore through our culture's illness, misinformation and dysfunction. Trusting the wisdom of the body is a leap of faith for us in this culture.

 

VOW: In your book, you say that women's health suffers because our bodies are a

cultural battleground.

 

CN: We must understand the experience of being female in our culture and how this affects our bodies. The organs that identify us as female are vulnerable in our culture and wounded by our culture. Our breasts are a good example. Misinformation about disease, constant media exploitation of women's breasts and our culture's ambivalence about breasts sets up a psychological dynamic loaded with potential harm for women.

 

Breasts are the physical metaphor for giving and receiving, and are designed to provide optimal nourishment for babies and sexual pleasure for the woman herself. We should feel great about our breasts, right?

 

In our culture, it's rare for a woman to have feelings of health and gratitude for her breasts. First, the images all around us tell us that our breasts are supposed to look like Barbie or Playboy models and who can achieve that without having breast implants? We feel badly because our breasts are either too big or too small or the wrong shape. And if that's not bad enough, then we're told that our breasts have disease. We're taught that our breasts are two premalignant lesions sitting on our chest.

 

During a talk I gave recently, I asked the women in the audience to please raise their hands if they had been told at one point or another in their lives that they had fibrocystic breast disease. Almost every woman raised her hand! Seventy to eighty percent of what is termed fibrocystic breast disease is actually normal changes in breast anatomy. We should discard the term "fibrocystic breast disease."

 

VOW: What do you recommend for women who experience tenderness or pain in their breasts?

 

CN: Here's what I tell women in my practice. If you suffer from breast pain, stop caffeine. Even a small amount of caffeine causes some women breast pain for reasons that aren't entirely clear. I also tell these women, and all women, to nourish themselves well. Choose more high-fiber, low-fat, nutrient-dense foods. Decrease total fat--eat no more than 30 to 60 grams per day.

 

I encourage all women to eat soy products regularly and to add them to their daughters' diets. Soy protein can improve hormonal functioning and may even protect against breast cancer. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that women who ate 60 grams of soy protein per day (the equivalent of one-fifth block of a one pound package of tofu) had changes in their estrogen levels similar to the effect of tamoxifen--an antiestrogen drug being studied as a possible prophylactic agent in women at high risk for breast cancer. In addition to tofu, soy protein is found in tempeh, soy beans, miso and natto.

 

VOW: It seem that we are inundated with warnings about breast cancer and fearful statistics. What is your current thinking about breast cancer?

 

CN: It's good that women with breast cancer can now talk openly about their experiences and come together in support groups and not be ashamed. What I don't like is what we're teaching women, and young girls, which is that your breasts may kill you so maybe we ought to do a prophylactic mastectomy or even remove them in utero. That's so contrary to women enjoying their breasts by experimenting with pretty bras, the arts of Aphrodite and the erotic potential of their breasts.

 

I'm very concerned from a metaphysical point of view. Metaphysics simply means the way thought and physical reality interact. We know that whatever we dwell upon and think about over and over tends to take on physical form around us. Breast cancer is talked about incessantly in the media, giving us one more reason to fear our bodies.

 

VOW: Many women are resistant to doing regular breast self-exams even though they understand the value of early detection. How do you counsel women?

 

CN: The general tone and tenor of the way our culture talks to women about the breast self-exam is completely stupid. Clearly breast self-exams are important-eighty percent of breast disease is found by the woman herself-but we need to transform the way we do them. What we're taught is to do a search and destroy mission where we use our hands as two mine sweepers looking for something we don't want to find. What I recommend is a monthly ceremonial check-in with your entire body, starting with the feet. Do the ceremony in the bathtub, in water scented with some wonderful aromatherapy, and include the breasts on the way up or the way down. Don't separate them out as two lethal structures on your chest because all that's going to do is create a self-fulfilling prophecy of disease.

 

VOW: It seems that our culture's attitude toward menstruation also wounds us and perhaps results in "diseases" such as PMS.

 

CN: Absolutely. Our culture is less than welcoming about this natural part of every woman's life. Calling menstruation "the curse" and teaching us to be ashamed our bleeding isn't helpful. Something is wrong when sixty percent of us have symptoms of PMS, ranging from mild to debilitating.

 

VOW: What do you recommend for women with mild or severe menstrual cramps?

 

CN: Changes in diet can alleviate cramps. If you have cramps, stop dairy food-especially cheese, ice cream, cottage cheese and yogurt-at least for the two weeks prior to menstruation. Cut down on excess protein and meat, and follow a high-complex-carbohydrate, low-fat, relatively low-protein diet. Take essential fatty acids such as flaxseed, borage and black currant seed oil. Oil of evening primrose is also good. The usual dose is four to six 500 mg capsules per day in divided doses. Stop drinking ice water and eating cold foods since according to Chinese medicine a lot of menstrual cramps are from blocked liver chi, an energy in the body. Acupuncture works great and so do many Chinese herbs. I'm not adverse to taking a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug like Advil, Motrin or Anaprox at the onset of a period or before pain starts.

 

VOW: You mentioned that sixty percent of women experience some degree of PMS. What can women do to alleviate the symptoms?

 

CN: There is no reason why any woman should suffer from PMS. Symptoms can be reduced or eliminated by lifestyle changes and, if necessary, natural progesterone.

 

In my practice, I've found that exercise removes symptoms of PMS for many women. Most women only need 40 minutes of exercise twice a week, according to studies conducted by the Tufts School of Nutrition, to gain real benefits. Other lifestyle changes that help are slowing down a little premenstrually, following a vegetarian diet, stopping caffeine, and reducing white sugar. Many women are deficient in folic acid and vitamin B6 and find that taking 100 mg per day of B6 helps with PMS. Magnesium, taken in doses of 400-800 mg per day, also helps.

 

For women with moderate PMS, I recommend Progest, a non-prescription skin cream containing highly effective plant extracts, usually from soy beans or yams, that are similar to natural progesterone. Progesterone acts as a central nervous system relaxant which calms us and it has no side effects or dangers associated with it. The two brands I use most are Progestone HP and ProGest. The usual dosage is one-quarter to one-half teaspoon twice a day applied to soft areas of your skin such as the inner thighs and arms, face, neck, abdomen and breasts. You should alternate the sites regularly to ensure maximum absorption. Start using the cream before your symptoms are due to occur and continue it through day two or three of your menstruation. If you have more severe PMS where you go along feeling wonderful and then, at a certain time every month, you feel as if a cloud comes over the sun or as if a curtain drops, you may need natural progesterone at a dose of 400 international units a day in pill form. This is available only through a prescription from your physician.

 

When you talk to your physician, make sure that you clearly express your desire to try natural progesterone. Synthetic progestins such as Provera or Amen can make PMS worse, but many physicians don't know the difference. Suggest that your physician call in your prescription to a pharmacy that specializes in natural hormones. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study on the use of Prozac for PMS and gave it glowing reviews which were picked up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and other publications. Women need to realize that Prozac is not a panacea. Now I would prescribe Prozac if a woman was really suffering and that was the only thing that would work. But what I know for sure is that if we look at PMS as an inherent biochemical defect in a woman's body requiring drugs, we're missing the wisdom of the menstrual cycle entirely.

 

VOW: Many of us grew up believing that menstrual cycles mean discomfort and inconvenience. How can we heal this perception?

 

CN: We need to consider how we might think differently about our cycles? How can we celebrate our bleeding time, our time of power and increased intuition, our time of connection to the global female being?

 

Tamara Slayton, founder of the Menstrual Health Foundation, has made redeeming the menstrual cycle her life's work. She has trained menstrual health educators in communities throughout the country to help women reclaim the power of their cycles and to teach girls how to greet menstruation with dignity and joy. Through Tamara's work, I've reclaimed the wisdom of my own cycles.

 

I used to hate my periods because I had terrible menstrual cramps. I sometimes had to call my mother from school and leave class because of the pain. Once during my residency I even had to leave a major surgical case because of menstrual cramps. Now I look forward to my periods and to the premenstrual time. I love the transparency of my moods and the fact that I'm more likely to cry because what I'm likely to cry about is always deeply meaningful. What a wonderful time to write, to tune in, to take a long bath, to read a novel, to organize my closets--there's no other time quite like it.

 

The menstrual cycle is created so that we have a period of outbreath and inbreath. The first part of the cycle is known as the follicular phase, that's when the egg begins maturing in the ovary in preparation for release at ovulation. At this time, we have more estrogen relative to progesterone. Most women feel outgoing, active and energetic--all the solar qualities our culture admires.

 

At ovulation, we may feel more receptive, more open to new ideas. After ovulation, progesterone levels start to rise and our moods often become more inward and reflective. The tide has gone out and everything that's on the bottom can be seen--we see everything that isn't working in our lives. The issues that come up for us during the luteal phase--the second half of our cycle, especially the week before bleeding--are important messages. Every month we have a chance to readjust our lives a bit.

 

VOW:You seem to be saying that women can take a large step toward creating health and wellness by accepting the natural cycles of our femininity as a gift and not a curse.

 

CN: Yes, we need to see that the feminine nature is cyclical, that our tides come in and go out, and that is how nature intended us to be. Even when we change our lifestyle, and accept our cyclic wisdom, we're not going to feel exactly the same before our period or during our period as we do during the other times of the month. This is natural and normal, and not only that, it's desirable. We need to change the value system that only approves of solar attributes so that we also value lunar attributes. And we need to make this change by starting with ourselves.

 

We can't provide healing for our daughters in areas where we are still deeply wounded ourselves. If we still hold on to shame about the shape and processes of our female bodies, we can't hope to pass on to our daughters a sense of love for their own bodies. We can't take our daughters into a space where we have never been. We must own our own experiences, however unsupportive and painful, and work through them.

 

Our bodies are designed to be healthy. Our task as women is to learn, moment by moment, to respect ourselves and to love the bodies we have instead of comparing them with an impossible ideal. The culture will change when enough of us change.

 

Jan Harrington is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

 

To heal ourselves, we must reenter our bodies and honor them. We must resist the temptation to always place the body and its needs last. I want to awaken that still, small, wise intuitive voice in all of us, the voice of our own body which we have been forced to ignore through our culture's illness, misinformation and dysfunction. Trusting the wisdom of the body is a leap of faith for us in this culture.

 

Resources

 

Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom:

Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing

Christine Northrup, M.D.

Bantam Books

 

Dr. Christiane Northrup's Health Wisdom for Women Monthly Newsletter

Phillips Publishing, 7811 Montrose Road, Potomac, Maryland 20854

 

Sources for Natural Progesterone:

 

Prescription:

 

Professional Arts Pharmacy

1101 N. Rolling Road

Baltimore, Maryland 21228

(800) 832-9285

 

Madison Pharmacy Association

Madison, Wisconsin (800) 558-7046

 

Women's International Pharmacy

Madison, Wisconsin (800) 279-5708

 

Both of the above pharmacies will provide studies and information on the use of natural progesterone.

 

Non-Prescription

 

ProGest Skin Cream Professional

and Technical Services

Portland, Oregon (800) 648-8211

 

Progestone HP Skin Cream

Sold in health-food stores, for more information or to order by mail:

Call the Dixie PMS Center

Marietta, Georgia (800) 767-9232

 

Reclaiming the Menstrual Matrix

Tamara Slayton, Menstrual Health Foundation

P.O. Box 1775

Sebastopol, CA 95437

 

Recie Dolan, RN, BSN Founder and Director

The Wellness Connection

510 Margaret Drive

Silver Spring, MD 20910

(301) 589-4054

 

Layne Humphry

Baltimore Menstrual Health Foundation

21300 Heathcote Road

Freeland, Maryland 21053

410-329-6708

 

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