A European Pregnancy

In addition to the burden of carrying a child, pregnancy also carries the weight of unsolicited advice from everyone within earshot. Obviously the risks of fetal alcohol syndrome and low birth weight are enough to frighten most women away from drinking during pregnancy...but are these risks based on scientific evidence?

In 1973 the University of Washington identified a group of physical and mental symptoms that came to be known as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Symptoms include delayed mental and social development in addition to a variety of physical characteristics specific to the face and musculature. This information led the Surgeon General in 1981 to call for a ban on drinking during pregnancy.

According to Dr. Ernest L. Abel, a professor at Wayne State University Medical School in Detroit, the National Institute of Health addresses only heavy drinking, the equivalent of five or more drinks per day. Ummm...even during my most leisurely days of college I wasn't coming anywhere near five drinks per day. How does a pregnant woman have the time and stamina to hit up that many happy hours?

Publications such as Parenting Squad have appeared to call out the misconception that all alcohol is dangerous to a pregnancy. They claim the National Institute of Health did not trust women to make the distinction between moderate and heavy drinking - and that they consciously introduced these scare tactics because of their lack of confidence in expectant mothers. They cite the Women's Wine Critics Board whose statement says..."Others, however, see this attitude as illogical and have concluded that the risks and benefits associated with light to moderate regular wine consumption compare quite favorably with most other activities of daily life."

In my perusing of available information on the net I was left with the general impression that as mothers become older and better educated, they are starting to question the wisdom of a ban on wine and privately partaking of a glass when the mood strikes.

Sent to Live on a Pee Farm Upstate

     Thousands of women enter menopause each day and the vast majority will spend one third of their life in this phase.  The jury is still out on whether the risks of hormone replacement therapy, including increased risk of certain cancers, gall bladder disease, and heart problems, outweighs the discomfort of menopause. These medicines have been proven to nearly halt the effects of osteoporosis and have been, falsely, linked to a decrease in dementia and the effects of Alzheimers.   For those who choose to go on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) the most prescribed medicine is Premarin.

     The secret ingredient in Premarin is PREGNANT MARES URINE (PMU).  The brand name is derived from PREgnant MARes urINe.  Whether in cream, pill, or patch form, it is essentially conjugated estrogens extracted from the urine of pregnant mares. It is superior to synthetic estrogen because the hormone is harnessed through an all-natural source.  (that would be urine) 

    HorseAid is a nonprofit organization that crusades for the rights of horses forced to work on pee farrns.  When farms were shut down in Ontario, Canada after documented horse abuses, they reopened in Manitoba and Alberta among other places.  Pregnant mares are tied up indoors for at least six months out of the year while their urine is being harnessed via the use of a catheter.  After they can no longer reproduce the horses are sometimes fattened at the feed lot and sold off for slaughter.

Advocates argue that the pee farms are good for the Canadian agriculture industry and support privately owned farms. The producers of the drug, Wyeth Organics, announced in 2003 that they would be decreasing the production of urine by one-third.  However, Wyeth earns roughly 1.2 billion dollars a year from the sale of Premarin and is unlikely to make further cuts until the FDA approves the synthetic form of the urine as a genetic replacement. 

You're Gonna Have to Face It You're Addicted to Sex

    Tiger Woods has spent 45 days in a rehabilitation facilty for sex addiction and he is not the first celebrity to do so.  Sex addiction is a modern and convenient way to explain why some people seem hell bent on destroying their personal (and possibly professional) lives. It is an accepted term in the media. Is it real?  No one seems to be able to agree.

    According to The Baltimore Sun the accepted answer is technically no but possibly yes.  "Sex addiction is not listed in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  However, "hypersexual disorder"is being considered for the next edition. Hypersexual disorder is a state where one is abnormally focused on sexual activity and uses people as objects for gratification.  As we can see, these standards are beyond subjective and it would be impossible to find quantitative measures that are representative of the entire population.

     Craig Fabrikant, a clinical psychologist from Hackensack University medical center, believes this behavior is more of a habit than an addiction.  (Cohen)  Many in the field compare sex addiction to a form of obsessive compulsive disorder or perhaps a part of narcissistic personality disorder or the manic phase of manic-depression, now bipolar disorder.  They say it is a symptom of these others illnesses that make one feel compelled against their will to repeatedly perform an action that he or she is powerless to control.

     If you want to know whether you suffer from sex addiction, CNN has a quiz to find out whether you're a sex addict.  Sample criteria include:  You lie, Sex consumes you, You have an intense interest in pornography, or You're 'divorced, dead, fired, or arrested.'  (Since everyone does one or more of these things, you're only an addict if "several" of the categories apply to you)  It's clear to see the criteria is broad.  Sufferers feel indignant that their "disease" isn't given the academic acceptance of substance abuse.  Others feel this is hogwash.