Breastfeeding and Women's Cycles

This is by a colleague on an Ayurvedic Post-partum Doula lists:

Dr. Shirish Bhate is a family practice/pediatrician from India. I always appreciate his contributions to our conversations and questions.

Author would like to bring in how the breast feeding is supporting mother too from the epidemic of PCOS, irregular, scanty or abnormal flow periods. It would also help conceiving very easy for next pregnancy.

Modern lifestyle pressure makes procreation optionally declined, or severely restricted. As a result women lead a life miles away from anatural biological role. Addionally synthetic milk formulas andtreating the breast as an ornament, rather than a feeding organ, giveholiday to natural biological function. If you add the use of contraceptive hormones, hormone replacement therapy, an increasingload of estrogenic pollutants in the environment and food, and a diet that has diverged from its natural design, the formula for hormonal pandemonium, metabolic dysfunction and disease is in place.

The results are manifest today in early menses in children (beginning asearly as eight and nine years of age), infertility, abnormal anderratic menstrual cycles, cervical dysplasia, fibroids, endometrialcancer, breast cancer, premenstrual syndrome, dramatic mood swings,depression, osteoporosis, and the hot flashes, psychologicalproblems, decreased libido, thinning of the vaginal wall and othersymptoms of abnormal menopause. Ever present yeast infections is acommon symptom.

Ayurvedists often recommended hunter-gatherer' s diet for getting rid ofmodern chronic diseases. Similarly if women would have as manychildren as they are capable of, nurse them for years as they are designed to, eat natural foods and live in a more pristineenvironment, their modern health problems would disappear. Althought he ideal biological lifestyle may not be possible for any of us today, we can try to align our lives to the ideal as far as possible.Women need to fulfill their reproductive role to achieve metabolic balance and health, but at the same time they do not want to be restricted by the burdens of large families, nor are large families socially or environmentally responsible. In an attempt to solve this dilemma, the quick fix of synthetic hormones is tempting. There are hormones tocontrol conception, modulate abnormal menstrualcycles, for sex drive and to fix menopause, but the price is heavy; as malignant tumors especially likes the areas of body where copious bloodsupply is available when needed, reproductive organs are the worst hit by malignancies. Proper exercise, diet and lifestyle choices can have the same beneficial effect without the potential consequence of cancer.

Living in tune with nature is protective against the female cancers. The average mom today chooses to give birth to about two infants. On the other hand, even today, tribal women in the natural setting start menstruation and ovulation at age 12 and deliver a number of babies and breast-fed them all. When they breastfeed, many feed up to five or more years. Pregnancy stops their productive hormone cycles (that generate estrogen) since there is room in the uterus for only one pregnancy. Nursing also stops the cycle because the body "knows" that lactation and caring for an infant is about all one body can endure.Thus the modern woman with two children would reproductively cycle and ovulate more than 400 times during her lifetime. On the other hand, the combination of more numerous pregnancies along with extended breast-feeding would have decreased the number of ovulations and cycles that a primitive mother would have had to less than 50.The cycling through menstrual periods an abnormal number of times, causing repeated surges of estrogen--about eight times more than nature intended, when coupled with the lack of adequate exercise,yoga, pranayama; how would one expect body to provide so much bioenergy needed for ovulations? Little wonder that estrogensensitive cancers abound in our modern world. And ovaries get tired, so periods limp, or become weak and scanty. Most of such cycles are an-ovulatory. This makes conception most difficult. This phenomenon is similar to men facing fertility problems as a result of excess sex, masterbation etc.

Increase in prostate cancers is also an indications of our modern lifestyle driven situation.The resting periods of lower estrogen that women experienced in the tribal lifestyle during pregnancy and lactation serve as a protective effect against cancer. Women today can even dramatically decrease their risk of reproductive system cancer by nursing their young for even as little as two years. The prolonged feeding will take care of weight gain during pregnancy also. Additionally, the fresh foods of the natural diet contain phytoestrogens. These compounds are able to attach to estrogen receptor sites in the body and prevent the stronger ovarian estrogens from attaching to tissues. However, the phytoestrogens only exert a mild estrogenic effect while not promoting cancer. Even then author feels that they should not be sued for a long time.

Hormones are master regulators of body function. They should not be manipulated either by lifestyle choices or synthetic medications without serious consequences. Women do well to think of their genetic heritage and try to live life as close to that as possible if health is the goal.

Coming to your irregularities in cycles, either taking aloe vera pulp early morning empty stomach for three months can make the cycles follow the calendar, or you can take aloe vera based ayurvedic pills(Rajapravartini Vati, Kanyalohadi Vati, Eladi Vati) discussed in earlier messages which can be searched by these tablet names. The treatment needs to be continued for three months.

Despite the author favoring the primitive lifestyle in tune with biological function for women, there is another side to the coin. The body uses periods as an ideal opportunity to eliminate waste products in blood. Hence women retain very soft, blemish free and glowing skin compared to the men as long as cycles go. Any attempts to stop the cycles should therefore be in tune with the nature and all attempts should be made to continue them in regularity.

The Yoga, meditation, walking, breathing techniques should be givent he first choice after the cycles are regularised by using phytoestrogens.