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Why Child Bearing Is Healthy
by: Dr Randy Wysong
From a purely biological perspective, bearing children can be considered the most important reason for a woman’s existence. For that matter, the same could be said about men, since both sexes are, in effect, disposable packages of genetic material. We die, but our genes continue on immortally. With increasing population pressure and modern independent lifestyles (unlike the family farm where children were almost a necessity), procreation has become an option that is increasingly declined or at least significantly restricted. But with these choices women take themselves out of a natural biological role. Additionally, treating the breast as an ornament rather than a feeding organ – by opting for synthetic formulas – also removes women from a natural biological function. When these choices are coupled with the use of contraceptive hormones, hormone replacement therapy, an increasing load of estrogenic pollutants in the environment and food, and a diet that has veered significantly from its natural design, the formula for hormonal pandemonium, metabolic dysfunction, and disease is in place. The result is early menses in children, infertility, abnormal and erratic menstrual cycles, cervical dysplasia, fibroids, endometrial cancer, breast cancer, premenstrual syndrome, dramatic mood swings and depression, osteoporosis, and other symptoms of abnormal menopause: hot flashes, psychological problems, decreased libido, and thinning of the vaginal wall. This is a difficult problem with no easy solution. If women would have as many children as they are capable of, nurse them for years as they are designed to, eat natural foods, and live in a more pristine environment, most of these modern health problems would disappear. If money flowed out of our tap we would not have economic problems either, right? The desire to limit families may soon not even be an option. We either curtail population growth or we will saw through the branch we all sit on. Population is the engine that ultimately drives all environmental woes. We live on a finite planet with finite resources, but we have an infinite ability to breed. We either live within the limits of Earth’s sustainable resources or we will destroy ourselves. Having children may be a natural and healthy process, but can be a deadly game for sustainable life on Earth. So we have a conundrum. Women need to fulfill their biological reproductive role to achieve metabolic balance and health, but if they do so unlimited, the health of life on Earth is jeopardized. In an attempt to solve this dilemma, women have turned to the quick fix of pharmaceutical synthetic hormones. Hormones that control conception, hormones that control abnormal menstrual cycles, and hormones that fix menopause. It is an overly simplistic solution to a complex problem. The saying, “Don’t mess with Mother Nature” is particularly applicable when dosing the body with hormones. Since the 1940’s when estrogen therapy became popular, hundreds of thousands of women have succumbed to cancer. For example, a woman is nearly 13 times more likely to get endometrial cancer, and at nearly a 30% increased risk of breast cancer when she takes estrogen. Recently, researchers have identified the two top preventable breast cancer risks: oral birth control pills and estrogen replacement therapy. For those who justify the use of estrogen for the benefits of decreased risk of osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease, consider that proper exercise, diet and lifestyle choices can have the same beneficial effect without the potential consequence of cancer. How have women specifically put themselves outside of their natural context to make themselves more susceptible to cancers? The average mom gives birth to about two infants. Although this is an intelligent number from the standpoint of population control, it is unnatural in that by not continuing to have pregnancies and to nurse (which stops ovulations) she will ovulate an incredible 438 times during her lifetime. On the other hand, a woman in the primitive natural setting who may not even know what causes pregnancy or how to prevent it even if they wanted to, would have started menstruating and ovulating at age twelve and would have delivered nine babies and breast-fed them over the course of her reproductive career. Breast-feeding can continue for children in a totally natural setting for up to five or more years of age. The combination of pregnancy along with breast-feeding in the premodern setting would have decreased the number of ovulations that a primitive mother would have had to about nine. This means that today women cycle through their menstrual periods an abnormal number of times, subjecting their bodies to surges of estrogen 50 times greater than our primitive ancestors living in a natural setting. Many cancers of women are sensitive to high levels of female hormones. For example, breast cancer is sensitive to estrogen. In dogs, simply removing the ovaries can often prevent or halt the progress of mammary cancer. Tamoxifen in humans is used to block estrogen activity within the mammary glands and thus is believed to exert its protective effect in this way. (This pharmaceutical agent can, however, increase the risk of uterine cancer to about the same degree that the risk of breast cancer is reduced!) The resting periods of lower estrogen levels that women experienced in the premodern setting served a protective effect to spare organs and tissues from cancer. Women who nurse for a total period of time of even as little as two years are known to have a decreased incidence of mammary cancer. This excess ovulation hypothesis is the likely explanation for the tragic phenomenon of modern female cancers. When humans decide to flout and repudiate nature by interfering with natural biological design, disease will always be the consequence. If the problem is a departure from nature, then the solution is a return to it. Here are some options: 1. Refer to the Wysong Optimal Health Program for guidelines on life choices that can enhance overall health and thus hormonal health (http://www.wysong.net/PDFs/ohp.pdf). 2. Emphasize fresh raw foods in the diet and avoid processed foods as much as possible. 3. Eliminate hydrogenated oils and refined sugars. Hydrogenated oils displace healthful dietary fats and have been shown to be carcinogenic, and sugars can stimulate a rise in estrogens. 4. Try to use organic foods as much as possible and avoid synthetic materials in cosmetics, at home and in the workplace to help reduce exposure to environmental estrogens. 5. Do not attempt “low fat” or “low cholesterol” fad diets that often create dependence upon processed carbohydrates and seriously reduce important natural dietary fats and essential fatty acids. 6. Increase the consumption of natural vegetable foods containing phytoestrogens which tend to counteract estrogens. 7. Avoid hormone medications if at all possible. 8. Explore natural birth control measures. 9. Nurse your babies for as long as you can. Modern life presents many choices, freedoms and rights. Tinkering with child bearing, however, is a choice that is not without consequences. Women need to be aware and take the steps necessary to make sure the choices they make do not also bring with them the increased risk of serious modern diseases. Reference: Zeneca Pharaceuticals. Tamoxifen Patient Insert. Zeneca, Inc. Wilmington, DE. 1998. About the author: Dr. Wysong is a former veterinary clinician and surgeon, college instructor in human anatomy, physiology and the origin of life, inventor of numerous medical, surgical, nutritional, athletic and fitness products and devices, research director for the present company by his name and founder of the philanthropic Wysong Institute. He is author of The Creation-Evolution Controversy now in its eleventh printing, a new two volume set on philosophy for living, several books on nutrition, prevention and health for people and animals and over 15 years of monthly health newsletters. He may be contacted at Wysong@Wysong.net and a free subscription to his e-Health Letter is available at http://www.wysong.net. 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