Midwives,Home deliveries, and high risk pregnancies

I left this as a comment on Kevin MD's blog, here goes the link

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/05/doctors-and-midwives-need-to-cooperate-more.html

Just had to share this with my own readers

Here goes my comment:

I agree completely with Dr.Greg.I have seen midwives who have no idea of many obstetric complications and don't diagnose things early enough during routine Obstetric checkups and then take it till the last minute when all they know is that the delivery is not happening and there is some complication but they themselves have no idea what exactly and precisely the problem is.They do not have enough clinical acumen to pick up signs early and treat them and simply rely on luck often times which sadly is at the cost of the life of the mother and child. I myself have witnessed women come to emergency rooms and then die on the ER table there coz they kept trying to deliver till the last minute at the home and only came to ER coz the mother collapsed due to massive bleeding which is essentially too late to seek medical help .A mother's life is important, You cannot let her die due to problems that could have been easily managed had it been a hospital birth. Yes, midwives can play a role in routine check ups and doing home visits to ease the burden of Obstetricians in remote areas where not many Obstetricians are available, but having a hospital delivery is the safest.But then this is sensible only after the woman first visits at crucial points during a pregnancy and makes sure it is not an already predetermined complicated pregnancy. Please remember that even a seemingly normal case can become complicated during labor due to massive bleeding and what not. It is unfair to first mess up a case and then run to the Obstetrician in the last minute for help .

Hormones , and other substances causing anger

I got a large number of reader queries asking the same thing.

WHAT ARE THE HORMONES THAT CAUSE ANGER.?

Well, for one, before answering this question, I have to clarify something. No, hormones are not what cause anger. yes, the life situations that evoke anger might cause certain hormones and other substances to be released during that course of anger but no, hormones on their own are not the ones causing anger.

Anger is a mere response to something that is there in your environment that is happening or happened to you and is now recorded in your memory and your replay that past moment and get angry. Yes, so therefore, anger is not an independent entity. It is a response to an environmental stimulus or a mental though stimulus.

Similarly, Hormones per say don't cause anger. Moreover, it is not certain hormones that predominantly figure in anger and other emotions. It is certain neurotransmitters that are associated with anger or mania or psychosis or depression etc. 

Yes, there are certain hormones which when produced in excess in the body can reduce your threshold for certain environmental stimuli and cause you to get angry quickly and such and i did talk about these hormonal imbalances in my previous blog entries. Please look at all my archives to find more than one article on hormones and their effects thereof. As far as neurotransmitters are concerned, I am gonna take some time and simplify complicated neurotransmitter lingo and then post a blog entry about them at a later point of time. 

Meanwhile keep those questions coming. All these blog entries are only advisories are not actually meant as specific medical advice. Please visit your family physician if you feel you need medical attention .

why do pets sometimes eat weird things like poo or used toilet tissue?

You know , young children do that too.. eating mud or dirt.. this is called PICA and happens when the child is missing some vital mineral nutrients ..or has worms that are sucking all the nutrients.
I guess, the same reason is true for an animal as well.. either that the diet is deficient or prolly, it has worm..It would be a great idea to deworm your doggy and try and alter the diet as well.
cheers.

Jan 13, 09:02AM PST

See more progress on: I want to keep record of my own comments and responses to them , since I can't figure if there is a way to do so on 43T

About PMS

Does PMS exist or is it a creation of the media?
brighteyes82 asked this question
Do you get PMS?

If so,
What are your ‘symptoms’? Tired? Bitchy? Depressed? Or just aches and pains?

If not, (guys, feel free to answer this one too)
Do you believe it exists?

I had a professor once tell us that PMS did not exist, that it was the product of the media. And that in ‘non-Western’ nations people didn’t experience it. I personally think that’s BS. Obviously there are hormornal changes and hormones affect us whether we like it or not. Every month I find myself wondering why the hell I’m so depressed and then the lightbulb turns on: “Oooh! It’s that time again!”
And in terms of people not experiencing it in ‘non-Western’ nations, I had a discussion with some Japanese women about this (actually it was menopause, the professor said the same thing about menopause – that women don’t get psychological symptoms outside of North America) and they said that their mothers or grandmothers experienced changes during menopause or pregnancy, but it wasn’t viewed as a problem back then. People didn’t complain about it because it was just a fact of life. I can see that, but if someone doesn’t complain it doesn’t mean they’re not uncomfortable!

My answer

PMS used to be called Premenstrual tension before , it became PMS.
Yes, there is a fair amount of tension involved right there..
Is it a media creation?
It is not a media creation as in, PMS is a fad that the media has magnified.
Does PMS exist? as in is it a real phenomenon or is it imaginary?
It is real..it is not imaginary.
What role has media played in it?
Media has overemphasized and kinda mocked PMS and has actually made a joke of it , to such an extent that as soon as a woman starts complain, everyone plainly just attributes it to PMS and then wash their hands off of actually addressing the woman’s complaints.
What are the causes of PMS?
The thing is, hormones do play a role..but what I assume is that, not jsut do hormones play a role., The occurance of PMS is directly related to the amount of stress the woman is facing in her life otherwise.
for eg.. A woman who has no stress otherwise, and her hormones are balanced too, wont really have any PMS.She may have cramping—cramping is part of PMS, but PMS is not just cramping.
on the other hand, A woman who has no stress but has her hormones imbalanced may have may uncomfortable symptoms during different phases of her mentrual cycle..but she really won’t have the typical PMS symptoms that the North American media constantly glorifies or rather, mocks at .as being PMS.
The general perception now, thanks to the ignorant media is that PMS is when women just go crazy and hysterical and psychotic for no reason.
This perception is totally false.
I am pretty sure women go crazy and hysterical and all that before their periods.. and i think it is not as much due to PMS as much it is probably due to the inconsiderate people around them that cause them a lot of distress.The distress that these women have managed to not express all through their menstrual cycle., but then their threshold comes down during this Premenstrual phase, and all the bitterness and resentment that they have been holding inside of them against inconsiderate husbands or partners or work place collegues comes pouring out during PMS.
So yes, PMS exists,, It is not solely a somatic hormonal disorder.I think , PMS has psychosocial causes too.. as in , you are more likely to suffer from sever and exaggerated symptoms of PMS if you live with partners that don’t understand you or partners that you don’t really connect to or work at places that cause you stress and such.
Why does PMS not occur outside of North America?
I think , that is not because PMS doesn’t exist outside of North America.It is because North American women are more assertive and independant enough to be able to express their discomfort and actually have a chance that they are heard.In many other countries, the problems of women are never heard or catered to or plain right ignored…Women have no voices in many countries..that is why.
I hope, my this serious elaborate effort to put in my two cents is adequate enough.

Jan 13, 03:20AM PST

See more progress on: I want to keep record of my own comments and responses to them , since I can't figure if there is a way to do so on 43T

How to drink a gallon or approx 4 L of water eachday and every single day

"hydrated"

How I did it: All adults need atleast a gallon or approx 4 L of water each day to flush out all toxins from the body. I feel the most productive and active when my urine is clear and non smelly. I accomplished this by filling out three 1L bottles and keep them in places where i am mostly likely to sit for long periods of time. that way i have a bottle nearby as and when i feel thirsty. I would also make sure i fill up bottles and take them along when i go out . I don't buy water bottles outside coz i don't like participating in using more and more plastic bottles to just store and sell water. We all get perfectly drinkable tap water at home..If suspicious, get your tap water tested for contaminants.i usually boil up tap water , cool and then fill up clean water bottles(empty gatorade bottles) and then take them along wherever i go.

Lessons & tips: If your urine is yellow or it is smelly, it essentially means that you are not driniking enough water. Avoid processed foods coz they contain preservatives and colors and ingredients that need more water to get excreted. Sometimes the body can mistake thirst for hunger.If you feel like you are constantly getting hungry, try driking water first and then see if you are still hungry. Carry a bottle of water around..Used recycled water containers rather than buying a fresh plastic bottle each time.

Resources: Buy three 1 L capacity gatorade bottles, Either drink the gatorade up or discard the juice. Then nicely clean up the bottles , Keep them ready each day to fill up with water. Buy a large water boiler if you think your tap water is contaminated.

It took me 10 days.

It made me hydrated

See more progress on: Drink a gallon or approx 4 L of water eachday and every single day

Solar powered cars for the sunny southern states

Atleast the desert state-nevada and the other states that burn during summer months must consider using solar powered cars as an attempt to deaddict from the gasoline dependancy..we don't want to go back to horse drawn carts(poor horses), we can do the bicycles, but for long distance summer road trips, solar powered cars are definitely a good idea.

Moderate Earthquake shakes LA

This just happenned a good 20-25 min ago.Moderate i.e 5.8 Richter scale magnitude earthquake with the epicenter 47 km from LA civic center has been reported.
suddenly, we all become so small, we are all at the mercy of earth and the environment.Hmmmm.
The thing is, our buildings per say , not to be in a positiion to withstand anything but perfect weather.Seriously, we need to stop building homes and offices with stucco based stuff.
where did all that rock based building technology go?
they just booard up some timber and then call it a home..This sucks
No wonder the buildings were swaying this way.
Seriously, we need to go back to building real homes with concrete or cement and rock and granite.Not some fragile boards.

A solar powered farm tractor..Now that is organic

No,Seriously, I was doing some chores in the kitchen and musing over how chopped up fish as organic manure doesn't appeal to me at all, as a vegetarian.
on the other hand, a solar powered tractor in my view would the way of the future in natural farming methods while still having the benefit of modern technology.Solar powered farm tractors..good idea dontcha think?

What is with the Local grown food craze?Does it work or matter at all?

well, sometimes, people continue doing things that actually damage the ecology in a bigger way and then pretend that they are saving the ecology by trying and doing less useful things like this recent , Locally grown food , craze.
I call it craze, because first off,,it would not make much of a difference to the ecology if you eat locally grown food and yet burn gasoline like hell in your cars and eat animals.
Let me tell you why the Locally grown food craze is a fad.
The very reason why importing of foods started was to meet food shortages and to make nutritious vegetables available in regions which wont be able to grow vegetables year round.esp in snow wridden areas..So, yeah,, did a great job of making sure, we can sustain ourselves and have access to fruits and vegetables even in the winters in snowy regions..So, i don't see the point when people suddenly want to eat only locally grown food..Seriously, the very fact that for fifty years or so, we have already imported and used green revolution practices and this has already introduced newer plants to our region which were not native to our region anyways.Including potatoes and tomatoes which were not native to any of the regions where it is being extensively used in the cuisine in this century.I mean, will you stop eating potatoes and tomatoes, and aubergines and peppers to go back the ecology that was there in north america a good 300yrs ago?OH, no,,right?
So, i would really appreciate if people concentrate on real methods to deal with not altering the ecology rather than pretend to do something by eating locally grown food..For all you know, we will have to starve if we eat only locally grown food in the 6inches of snow..So, please, start doing the basics first and then think about the locally grown food.Would you stop using the car as much?no..oh , no..that would be inconvenient ..so you won't do that , will ya? well,,, first try doing that,,try using the bicycle more...do real things that will make an impact..then you can allow yourself to go crazy over the organic food and locally grown foods..k?

Alcohol

Alcohol.It is a depressant that also affects the cerebellum .Yeah.It is addictive.It damages the liver.It is a diuretic and actually makes the body lose heat though it makes one feel warm .So, the body ends up dehydrated and the core temperature goes down too.Tobacco..should i start talking about tobacco?Naaaaah...I am pretty sure everyone is making informed choices in life.whatever.Who cares.I just hope i find a nice non drinking man to date.
July 18, 2008 4:07 PM

How preserved/processed foods can be potentially carcinogenic(cancer causing)

Copyright 2008 Le Cinq Blog Dr.A.R All rights reserved
There has been an escalation of cancer incidence in the past couple of decades.

This is sometimes attributed to the increase in expected lifespan which inturn increases the chances of cell signals to get misfired as they get older.

While this is definitely a valid argument,I somehow think that this increased incidence of cancer occurance even in younger age groups as is the increased incidence of allergies and other disorders irrespective of age groups is primarily due to the increased consumption of processed foods and/or consumption of foods with preservatives.

What do preservatives essentially do?

Preservatives essentially make sure that the cells in foods do not continue undergoing physiological changes so that the state in which they have been packed at is retained.This can essentially be achieved only if all cell processes are arrested .This causes the cells to be either killed or frozen in steady state.,Which is why freezing is a very effective method of preservation and less harmful when compared to preservation of foods using chemical preservatives.

chemical preservatives prevent any cellular ripening progression or biological degradation by essentially stopping all cellular processes .Many of them also act in a way to prevent microbial growth in already prepared and packed food.The microbial cellular processes though different from our cells, sometimes there are processes that are very similar, and therefore, these preservatives are very well capable of acting on human cellular processes as well, which include not just acting on the human digestive tract cells that come in contact with food but also those organs in general that take part in removing unwanted substances from the body in the form of detoxification or excretion.
Essentially, any non nutritious substance get removed straight away and this includes drugs or prservatives , chemicals, dyes,and even alcohol.These preservatives thus put a lot of stress on the liver and kidney to work extra harder.
It would be therefore a great idea to eat foods that are fresh rather than those that have been sitting in neat lil packets on supermarket shelves containing food that would go rotten by the time the pack is picked up had there not been any added preservatives.If at all you need to pick up food that is not fresh, it is alway better to choose frozen foods aka frozen vegetables etc rather than canned vegetables that have added calcium gluconate to maintain color.If at all you need to pick up canned foods, choose ones that have been canned in pure brine instead of ones that have added calcium gluconate etc.Take time to read food labels and look at ingredients when you pick up canned foods.One that says, 'water and salt' is better than one that says 'water, salt, calcium gluconate' etc.
Also, while using fresh veggies, it is always a good idea to run flowing water over veggies to run off any pesticides sticking to them or any microbes sticking to the surface.There is absolutely no necessity to wash veggies with detergents and such.Plain forcefully running water is abrasive enough to remove most contaminants.
Happy healthy eating to all readers !
Please note that all material is originally composed and written by me.Nothing has been lifted from anywhere else.I hold a medical degree prior to which i also did two years of food and nutrition in college.
All content is copyrighted and any form of reproduction is strictly prohibited

Copyright 2008 Le Cinq Blog aka Dr.A.R All rights reserved.No part of my blog is to be copypasted or reproduced in any form original or plagiarized on any other site or outside of the internet with my prior written permission.You can link to my blog only after permission.Under no condition are you allowed to post any part of my work including a sampling .You can only post a link and that too only after my permission and that is as much as you get .If you still lack integrity or self respect and post slightly modified forms of my blog entries, I shall come after you and haunt you -cough cough -hunt you down !

What is wrong with Wild animals on Talk shows !

Okay, i see more and more talk shows where they invite this "expert" who comes there and brings along all kinds of wild animals and then proceeds to bring them out there and demonstrate things.
What is wrong with this scenario?
First off, WILD ANIMALS, are supposed to be wild.
This attempt tobring them out to talk shows is posed as an attempt to educate about these animals.
But what this act is actually eventually ending up doing is indirectly indicating that it is alright to chain and domesticate and cage wild animals.
Wild animals are supposed to be wild.They are not suppossed to be caged that way or belted that way or be brought to shooting studios full of audience.
Even if one such animal is being used as their ''alleged" attempt at educating people about more such similar animals out there in the wild, It is still wrong, coz one animal eventually is getting domesticated and trained to understand that it will be fed for every act of listening to the human that will feed it .
This is much akin to teaching animals tricks.These tricks essentially are only for the amusement of the human viewers.Teaching animals tricks is essentially a self affirmation attempt of humans where they as humans are amused and feel better and feel a sense of achievement that they taught an animal a trick.The animal doesn't get amused by itself except for the fact that it gets a treat of food for each action that it performs, an action that it naturally is not inclined to perform. It doesn't really care about the trick at all.It just thinks of it as a food gaining attempt.It is like training lab rats to do tricks to be fed.This is just wrong.
So, yeah, coming back to bringing wild animals to television studios, there are far better and correct ways of educating the public.For eg videos of animals in their natural environment where we as intruders hide and video tape them while they go around behaving normally in their normal environment, rather than capture that animal, cage it and train it to behave in lure of a food treat and bring them to telvised studios to "EDUCATE" people.
Come on!Hyprocritical excuses to do wrong things is not acceptable.

Have you heard of the WATER FOOTPRINT?How vegetarianism can help in dealing with foodshortage

A lot of people have started using the word CARBON FOOTPRINT more and more in their conversations, just like , using the word , 'Going Green', or the word, ORGANIC, has become another fad.
The part of this whole repeated misuse or overuse of the word without actually ever really understanding the concept of it or without actually truly doing something about it, is what irritates me very much and each time some ill informed person just goes yada yada yada about green or organic or most recently carbon footprint, All i want to do is make them sit down and then proceed to ask them to explain the concept to me.
Anyways, let us come back to CARBON FOOTPRINT.This is a broad indicater of how much of the non renewable resources have each one of us as single entity used up .The larger the footprint , the larger the wastage that has been done by us.
Now, A waterfootprint is much the same, the amount of water that one wastes and the amount that one doesnt need to waste or the water that they could have prevented from getting wasted had they been careful .
For eg. you know we spend so much of water feeding a cow,, approximately 40L of water, just so that we could drink a Litre of milk.So, we have had to invest 40L of good to drink water for just a mere 1L of milk
I mean, really, it is absolutely wastage.Soymilk prepared from beans uses water to grow the plants but ofcourse that is all it needs besides soil minerals.
One pound of soybeans , Yield a lot of soymilk besides the byproducts thereof after the milk has been extracted which are absolutely edible and rich in minerals.
We could very well, skip the step of feeding the cow the soybeans and then drinking the meagre yield of cow's milk
The cow needs to be fed as well, besides being given water, to produce a Litre of cow's milk.
Get my point?
we could have saved that much of food and that much of water, had we decided to just go ahead and drink soymilk .While excluding a step in the foodchain we save a lot of resources.
We feed the cow, corn and soybeans ,peanuts and what not, which for a fact , could actually be useful as food to us ourselves.Thus, by eating that very corn and by eating soybeans and peanuts and not breeding more cows just to be slaugthered, we are actually countering the food shortage.A 40L of water would be enough for twenty people for a day.The amount of feed that a cow feeds per day would be enough as filling meals for five or six people.
Simply said, if we can eat wheat and carrots and soybeans and corn ourselves, why go ahead and feed pounds and pounds of that to a cow and finally kill the cow after having fed the cow for months this way?
Had we been a tiger or a lion or an alligator which cannot survive on carrots or soybeans , i would never have suggested this idea.
Afterall, our ancestoral primates were herbivores.We sure can go back to that and save the environment.

Do you know of the water foot print?

NO , we are not the top of the food chain

No , we are not carnivores.
We are descendants of herbivores.
We dont have any natural body mechanism that would help us hunt and eat just like a REAL CARNIVORE like a lion or tiger has.
We don't have heavy paws or claws or powerful heavy jaws or a heavy body.
We are small and tiny with no natural claws and paws and we have long intestines like that of herbivores.
btw, the word omnivore is a very convenient term to include groups of animals that would eat anything and everything just coz it is hungry and that would perhaps include cows being fed ground offals of other slaughtered cows at the farm.
hmmmm.
So, yeah, we are not on top of the food chain.
Either ways, the food chain has no top or bottom.As the word says, a food chain is a chain.It has no top or bottom.It is a cycle.
Plant makes food from the sun.we eat plants.we shit .plants use that and grow again.WE die, we disintegrate into the soil, plant uses that. thus the cycle goes on.
Anways,we need to go back to our very original food patterns and save ourselves from a lot of ailments including obesity and colon cancer.