Recently in Health Category

Just wanted to share my friend, Claire Mysko's smart response, to this article about "pregorexia"--"a disorder marked by preoccupation with weight control through extreme dieting and over-exercising while pregnant.":

I just cringe at that "pregorexia" term every time I see it. It's just another example of how eating disorders are always presented in extremes (and having the gallery of "look how skinny she was!" photos certainly doesn't help). That kind of coverage makes it much easier for other women to separate themselves and, sadly, to pass judgment ("How could she be so selfish?). And that "selfish" label is one that the pregnant women and moms we interviewed are truly terrified of. It's why so many of them keep their eating disorders, disordered eating and body image issues quiet. Three quarters of them admitted that didn't even discuss those histories with their doctors.

Hopefully we'll be able to broaden the discussion with our upcoming book, Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?: The Essential Guide to Loving Your Body Before and After Baby.

Keep any eye out for it in October!

In a historic move the Department of Health and Human Services has issued regulations that will start the process to lift the HIV travel and immigration ban. The ban is from the 80's and has stigmatized and restricted the movement of people with HIV. The ban is based on discrimination, hate and fear. Andrew Sullivan writes,

Once the ban is lifted, the US will be able to become a venue for AIDS and HIV research conferences again (the US has been unable to host such events because of the ban for years), and leave behind the tiny number of countries - from Yemen to Saudi Arabia - that still actively stigmatize and penalize people with HIV in travel. It will remove a measure that discourages honesty about HIV, and promotes a stigma around the disease that makes effective prevention and treatment much harder. It will save lives. It will save relationships and marriages. It will place America where it belongs - at the forefront of global AIDS and HIV leadership. And because all immigrants have to prove they will not be a public charge and have private health insurance, and because a fee was added to the visa application to pay for the costs of enforcement, the fiscal effect is minimal - and offset by taxes legal immigrants like yours truly will continue to pay.

This is great news.

This is a guestblog from Audacia Ray of Waking Vixen and author of Naked on the Internet.

This past week it was revealed that there are some new cases of HIV within the adult industry in Los Angeles. The LA Times and LAist have both covered the story, as have adult industry media outlets AVN and Xbiz. A stunning majority of straight porn companies do not require condoms and actively discourage their use - in the business this is called "condom optional" which is euphemistic for "you either perform without a condom or you don't perform for this company." The gay porn industry has slightly different standards than the straight porn business. Gay porn companies do not require testing, with the idea that it is an invasion of privacy and HIV shouldn't prevent people from working/having sex, but the more reputable companies require condom use. The Gay Video News Awards (GayVN) will not consider a film for an award if there is "barebacking" (sex without a condom) in it.

I worked in and around the sex industry (porn and other sectors) for several years, so my take on the news of recent HIV cases and the dynamics of health, safety, and responsibility within the porn business is colored by my experiences in and frustrations with the business. I directed and produced a bisexual feature porn film, The Bi Apple, which was shot in NYC in summer 2006 and released in February 2007. It went on to win a Feminist Porn Award for Hottest Bisexual Scene and was nominated for Best Bisexual Video at the GayVN Awards (where, by the way, it was pretty fun to be the lone girl director). The company I made the film for required performers to be negative for HIV, chlamydia, and gonorrhea, and I required all performers to wear condoms for vaginal and anal sex and the option to use condoms for oral sex (no one opted to negotiate condom use for oral). I also paid for tests for the performers who weren't working regularly and didn't have a recent test on hand.

Marilu Morales has filed a federal lawsuit after being allegedly shackled while giving birth at Cook County Jail in Chicago.

...Morales was eight months' pregnant when she was incarcerated in April 2008, according to the lawsuit. It could not be immediately determined on what charges Morales was being held.

When she went into labor three days later, she was taken to Stroger. A sheriff's deputy shackled a hand and foot to the hospital bed, the lawsuit alleged.

Morales was in labor for four hours before a physician ordered the deputy to remove the shackles shortly before she gave birth, the lawsuit said. The shackles were allegedly put back on immediately after the baby was born.

This is the fourth lawsuit that Flaxman has filed against Sheriff Tom Dart's office regarding a pregnant prisoner had been shackled while giving birth. Unbelievable.

Related posts: Judge jails HIV positive woman to "protect" her fetus
New report: Mothering in Prison
Woman gives birth in jail cell, alone
Bureau of Prisons bans shackling pregnant inmates
Critical Resistance: Prisons as a Tool of Reproductive Oppression

Moderator Isobel Coleman begins by pointing out that there is some controversy over the title of the panel itself. She asks: "Is this a new agenda? Who's agenda is it?"

The first panelist to speak is Lamia Karim (pictured right), from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. She speaks to all of the various human rights discourses, many of which she obviously doesn't think are complex or ethical. "What I am most interested in is grassrooots, indigenous, human rights movements organized, not around an individual human, but much more on a group rights basis.This is taking up these rights discourses but trying to renegotiate with the realities on the ground."

"As feminists we need to really go beyond the rhetoric of the empowerment of women and ask carefully, 'What does it take to empower women? Is money enough? What does it mean to give women access to capital without giving them skills training?' This is the Grameen Bank model--based on neo-liberalism."

Larnia has a book coming out through UC Press in spring 2010 which she describes as "a radical critique of this model, this particular model. I wanted to put it out there because this has become a very innovative way of framing how women, especially in the global south and very poor women, can be economically and socially empowered." Can't wait for that!

Isobel turns to Jill Lester next, who is the ED of The Hunger Project, to ask her what her reaction is to the radical critique of micro lending.

"Unfortunately, I think we're going to be in violent agreement." [audience laughs]

"The Hunger Project believes in an integrated approach to poverty. Part of that is having a micro finance facility. We ask the community to form a micro finance committee of 100% women to set their own agenda."

Next up is Radhika Balakrishnan (pictured left), of the Marymount Manhattan College:
"Rather than talking about the crisis as if it something that fell from the sky, we're calling it the 'manufactured crisis,' caused by deliberate changes that the government made in the regulatory framework."

"We're trying to turn human rights around on them. You want to oppose human rights all over the world? What about the human right violation right here. What about the TARP legislation? There's no transparency. That's public money. This is our institution. Therefore there's a human rights obligation on the state."

Cynthia Enloe (holy amazing) jumps in as the pinch hitter:

"One has to be able to think analytically in order to act. I've hated the theory-practice divide. It's stupid. Anyone who acts, especially if you try to act collectively, if you try to mobilize beyond your best friend, it means you've done some causal thinking. You are an analyst. Out of your action come new analytical understandings. It works and you think why did it work? Or it didn't and you have to go back to the drawing table. We are all analysts. We are all thinkers who think thinking matters. Thinking is in handshake with action."

"If we've learned something from feminist thinking from around the world, it is that you have to think big in order to think small--the guys say that of course--but you also have to think small in order to think big. It works both ways and it's really one of the great strengths of feminist thinking for action."

"We are at a moment now where we've got a pool of schools and an understanding of what needs to be acted upon, some people call it an agenda, and we are at a moment, not just because we have a new president of one country, not just because the institutions of capitalism are wobbly (they're not as wobbly as we'd liked)."

"We really are at a moment amongst all of us, and I mean all of us who aren't in the room, where we have the capacity to think as if it matters and the capaity to know what needs to be acted upon. This is a very, very exciting moment. We shouldn't let cynicsm let that moment pass."

"Think as if it matters and then act as if it affects our thinking."

A new study says that breastfeeding may lower the risk of MS relapses after pregnancy.

I am a fan of the sponge. But they need to stop teasing, for real.

From The New York Times:

At one time the Today Sponge, a spermicide-coated polyurethane barrier placed in the vagina to inhibit sperm, was the most popular form of over-the-counter birth control for women. Now, a new distributor is introducing it again this weekend, hoping to reclaim that status.

Introduced in 1983, the sponge first disappeared from drugstores in 1994 after some manufacturing problems. It reappeared in 2005 under new ownership, which spent millions to promote the brand before selling it to another company. That new proprietor declared bankruptcy in late 2007, taking the Today Sponge out of production last year.

I remember when the sponge came back in 2007, and I started to use it soon after. Then *poof*, gone. So let's hope the Today sponge is here to stay - because the more contraceptive options women have, the better!

Via PopGadget.

I've gotten shit for my bougie love of yoga before, but I thought I'd let folks know about my latest obsession: YogaToday. Here's a groovy little advertisement for it:

If you've got an internet connection and a computer, you can do an hour long yoga class with gorgeous views of the Wyoming landscape. In this economy, free yoga classes are especially sweet. Plus you can make weird noises and the only one who notices is your cat. TMI. Sorry.

Check out this surprisingly informative piece from the sexpert over at Fox News (yeah, I did a double take as well), Yvonne Fulbright about the reported decrease in sex organ functioning and loss of sex drive due to anorexia and bulimia. She writes,

*Possibly triggering*

Having an eating disorder is also linked to deficient sexual functioning in women when they become sexually active. When a female severely reduces her intake of food to the point she's consuming hardly anything, naturally, her reproductive system shuts down.

With low body fat, her body fails to produce sufficient amounts of sex hormones, namely estrogen. Thus, she'll quit menstruating, making pregnancy difficult for those hoping to reproduce. These endocrinal changes have a domino effect, starting with a lack of vaginal secretions.

This loss of vaginal lubrication makes intercourse painful and uncomfortable. As a result, many develop an aversive reaction to sex and further loss of interest. Lack of orgasm is also common in women with anorexia nervosa.

That is the medical advice, prior to this Fulbright goes into women with eating disorders and how their low self esteem affects their sex drive. I think her analysis is apt.

The one thing that is rubbing me the wrong way (and perhaps I am reading into it to much!) is the way this is couched as advice on how to have better sex as opposed to how to have a healthier self-esteem. I guess it is a sex column, but the reason women should stop having eating disorders is because of their sex drive, not because it is unhealthy? Also, I was hoping that when she wrote the tag line to the article she was going to suggest that having a curvy figure is sexy, as well, to counter-act the reason that so many women have eating disorders; they are taught that thin is sexy.

Finally, doesn't the advice border on, "you better stop it with that eating disorder, because it is NOT sexy?"

Go check out Our Bodies Ourselves 2009 Women's Health Heroes. It is an amazing group of women's health advocates. From the blog,

The 20 outstanding individuals and organizations inducted in May 2009 have made significant, long-lasting contributions to women's health. Their work covers a wide range of health fields and disciplines.

Included are midwives and women advocating for safer, more comfortable births; founders of websites on chronic illness and teen sexuality; an activist against female genital mutilation; director of a LGBT health center; a public health nurse; a photographer; and many more.

This inaugural group, chosen from close to 100 nominations, represents seven countries: United States (13), Canada (2), Australia, The Netherlands, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Ukraine.

Feministing is honored to stand next to these amazing women. Thanks OBOS!