Record numbers of women are taking “the pill.” The National Center for Health Statistics reported last year that 82% of adult American women have taken “the pill” at some point in their lives. Between 2006-2008, it is believed that 10.7 million women used “the pill.” So let’s spend a little time getting to know more […]
Archive for the ‘chemicals’ Category
The Pill
Posted in aesthetic and cosmetic, birth, breast, cancer, chemicals, contraception, disease, fertility, gender, gynecology, hormones, menstruation, obstetrics, ovary, ovulation, pharmaceuticals, pregnancy, puberty, sex, technology, testing, treatment, uterus, vagina, young women on May 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Ovaries
Posted in birth, cancer, cervix, chemicals, contraception, disease, fertility, gender, gynecology, hormones, menopause, menstruation, obstetrics, ovary, ovulation, pharmaceuticals, placenta, pregnancy, puberty, surgery, uterus, vagina, young women on May 10, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Today, I tackle a body part upon which I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert. Had my left ovary behaved years ago, I would not be typing this today–and I would still have both ovaries. Speaking with other women, it becomes obvious very quickly that we tend to know very little about our […]
The Big C: Cancer–The Disease in a Nutshell
Posted in breast, cancer, cervix, chemicals, children, disease, fertility, food, gynecology, hormones, obstetrics, ovary, pharmaceuticals, surgery, technology, testing, treatment, uterus, vagina, vulva, young women on April 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Cancer is arguably the most feared disease in the Western world. In America, cancer is the leading cause of death of people between 35-65 years of age. Nearly 1 in 7 deaths worldwide in 2007 was due to cancer. Cancer rates are exploding throughout the world as developing nations industrialize and eat diets that are […]
Müllerian Ducts and Sex Differentiation
Posted in chemicals, gender, hormones, obstetrics, pregnancy, sex, vagina, vulva, young women on May 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Something that has always stuck with me since Intro to Biology years ago was something my professor said: females are the prototypical human sex. In other words, we all start out as females in a sense. It is not until around the 8 week benchmark in fetal development that a fetus starts to develop distinct […]
Hormonal Differences
Posted in chemicals, children, gender, gynecology, hormones, pregnancy, uterus, young women, tagged behavior, cheating, fingers, gender, hormones, prenatal, research, science, uterus on January 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
If you are anything like me and read the medical headlines every day you have probably noticed in the past few weeks a spate of articles about how hormones can affect a person’s social behavior. The first such article was a timely piece, considering the state of the economy, that argues that the length of […]
Sperm
Posted in chemicals, fertility, gender, gynecology, obstetrics, ovulation, pregnancy, sex, young women, tagged DNA, fertilization, gynecology, obstetrics, ovum, pregnancy, sperm on December 15, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Sperm may seem an odd choice of subject for a “young woman’s guide to gynecology and obstetrics.” But it is this last word, obstetrics, that makes sperm a good choice for an entry subject. Arguably, without sperm, obstetrics would not exist. This may not always be the case, but for the time being, each human […]
History of the IUD
Posted in cervix, chemicals, contraception, gynecology, hormones, obstetrics, ovary, ovulation, pharmaceuticals, uterus, young women, tagged birth control, chemicals, contraceptive, Ernst Gräfenberg, history, IUD, uterus on November 28, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Speaking of Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg, let’s talk about intrauterine devices (IUDs) since Dr. G is recognized as the first developer of the modern IUD. IUDs, in a crude sense, have existed for an untold number of years. Women and men have inserted various implements into human and animal uteri to prevent pregnancy for many years. […]
Crabs: What Are They?
Posted in cancer, chemicals, children, disease, pharmaceuticals, sex, testing, treatment, young women, tagged crabs, pubic lice, stds, symptoms, treatment on November 14, 2008 | 2 Comments »
In school growing up there were numerous crab jokes made by my classmates. If we wanted to give the ultimate insult we would say, “S/he’s got crabs.” Of course, we didn’t really know what crabs were. We knew vaguely they were something one acquired in the genital region generally from a sexual encounter and are […]
Is Milk Really That Good for You?
Posted in cancer, chemicals, food, gynecology, hormones, menstruation, puberty, young women, tagged cancer, food, hormones, menstruation, puberty on November 7, 2008 | 5 Comments »
After recently spending four days in Cleveland at a bioethics conference I came away with several new, and renewed, perspectives on women’s health issues. The first that comes to mind is something that my roommate, another bioethics graduate student, and I discussed. That is early menarche in females. Now, a little personal background: I was […]