Ditching the Pill …and Other Contraceptives

An excerpt from Marilyn M. Shannon’s book, Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition. **** Congratulations on your decision to discontinue birth control pills or other hormonal contraceptives! You have taken a giant step toward better health. As hormone specialist Diana Schwarzbein, M.D., has written, you cannot achieve optimum hormonal balance while you are on the Pill, because hormones…

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Double Standards

From the Family Foundations archives **** We had a scare last summer. It had been a stressful run-up to a road trip that was doing triple duty: travel writing, professional conference and family vacation. My cycle started just as we left, and — of course! — we forgot the thermometer. We figured we’d be home by the…

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The Continuum of Fertility: Breastfeeding

An excerpt from Marilyn M. Shannon’s book, Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition. **** The experience of a nursing mother — as she follows a continuum from complete infertility to normal fertility — is instructive for non-nursing women with irregular cycles or unexplained infertility. At the beginning of breastfeeding When the hormones of ovulation — FSH and LH…

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