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Redefining Women's Health:
A Conversation with
Christiane Northrup, M.D.
by Jan Harrington
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 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.
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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.
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.
Go to related product: Progestone 900
Jan Harrington is a freelance writer and editor who lives in
Silver Spring, Maryland.
Visit Voices Of Women for
more wonderful articles and information!
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