Follow me if you are interested in hearing about my adventures as a doula in NYC, in addition to news and articles related to reproductive health, and resources for mamas and papas, and mamas and papas to be.

From the statement released by the Empire State Stem Cell Board:

“On June 11, 2009, the Empire State Stem Cell Board (the “Board”) voted to allow funding of research on stem cell lines derived using eggs (called “oocytes”) donated solely for research purposes where the donor was, or will be, compensated for the expense, time, burden and discomfort associated with the donation process — within specified limits — as is currently permitted when women donate oocytes for reproductive purposes in New York State.”

The statement later adds:

“There is no principled reason to distinguish between donation of oocytes for reproductive purposes and research purposes when determining the ethicality of reimbursement.  The risks associated with donating oocytes to stem cell research are no greater than those associated with reproductive donations.  Moreover, donating oocytes to stem cell research arguably confers a greater benefit to society than does oocyte donation for private reproductive use.”

And:

“Similarly, there is no ethical basis for promulgating different payment policies for women who donate oocytes to stem cell research and from participants in other types of human subjects research.  National and international consensus bodies, as well as ethics scholars, generally have found it acceptable to provide reasonable compensation to subjects who participate in human subjects research to remunerate for the time and discomfort associated with participation in such research. To treat differently women who donate oocytes to stem cell research would be unjust, and would demean the significant contribution that oocyte donors make to society by participating in stem cell research.”

To donate one’s eggs, a woman has to inject hormones into her own abdomen for weeks, in order to stimulate the ovaries to release a large quantity of eggs at once.  This and the retrieval process can cause minor complications such as mood swings and swelling and bruising at injections sites, to major complications such as structural damage to reproductive organs or decreased fertility.  However, for some women who aren’t worried about being fertile, need the cash, and/or are feeling especially altruistic, it might be a good option.

I’m thankfully able to support myself on a meager graduate fellowship at the moment, so although I wish I could contribute to stem cell research somehow, I’ll hold on to my fertility and extra ooooooooooocytes for now!

I was surprised and tried to refute her answer by pointing out several stories from my early childhood.  To this my mother responded, “You weren’t shy!  I couldn’t get you to stop telling the teacher things I taught you at home, like when you explained how the sperm fertilizes the egg to everyone in nursery school!”  I remembered this story also.. when I was 4 my mother explained to me how babies were made, not so much in terms of human love making, but on the level of sperm meets egg to create baby, using a volume from a children’s encyclopedia as a visual aid.  I have a memory of an illustration of several squiggly sperm swimming toward a balloon-like egg.

My mother was helping out with my nursery school class those days, so imagine her embarrassment when I raised my hand and said, “Teacher!  Teacher!  I want to tell you something!”  And jumped up and explained human reproduction to the whole class of 4 year olds at Honey Brook Early Learning Center!

Although I’ve always known this story, the connection to what I’m still doing, over a couple decades later, never struck me until now.  Still telling everyone about reproduction only really because I have a hard time not talking about it because I still find it so interesting!

I remember being blown away when I first found out the plants also have eggs and sperm!  What?!?!

Human heredity is crazy though.. and you don’t even really realize until you see it with your own eyes.  When I looked at Hazel this time, a bit more grown up since the last time I saw her a few months ago, and she was close to my face and looking at me, “having a conversation” with me, I saw parts of myself looking at me and talking to me.  She doesn’t say a whole lot yet, but with isolated words, some sign language signs, some of her own hand motions, sounds and nodding, we did manage to have a sort of conversation.  And I saw some of my facial features, making my facial movements on a little adorable face.  If that’s never happened to you, let me just say it’s kind of a mind-blowing experience.

Kids at that age have the capacity to understand so much, even though they may not be talking at any length.  Since Hazel is still nursing, Melissa refers to her breasts as “milkies” to Hazel.  Now, Hazel has made the connection to her own, and if you ask Hazel where her own “milkies” are, she’ll look down at them on her body.  At 16 months, she already understands a fair amount of basic anatomical terminology, including vagina.  After pointing out a few body parts, prompted by Melissa saying, “Show me where your _____ is,” she was asked where her vagina was, and turned around and pointed to me!  Ha, who knows, maybe Vagina sounds enough like Aunt Jill?  We laughed at her mistake, but she pointed at me every time we asked her.  Until my mother was around, then she pointed to Grandmom Karen.

Along the same lines of kids doing/saying the darndest things, my mother pointed out that not only did I repeat things she taught me to my nursery school and kindergarten teachers, I also repeated anything my parents told me about myself.  I guess the more you hear something the more you believe it.. so I told my kindergarten teacher just what my parents always said to me, that I was “cute as a button, and just right!”

Signed,

Aunt Vagina - “I’m (still) cute as a button and just right!”

I keep a close eye on the daily science headlines from a variety of sources, and one topic that I never stop seeing new news on is breastfeeding - and its benefits to both child and mother.  Just a few in the last year, I believe, will illustrate enough.

Benefits to Child:

NY Times article covering a large-scale study (over 15,000 participants) that found that at 6.5 years of age, the breastfed children scored significantly higher on vocabulary, word matching and verbal I.Q. tests compared to formula-fed children.  Additionally, teacher ratings were consistently higher for the breastfed children.

Breastfeeding transfers immunity to babies through antibodies made from the mother, and researchers are beginning to figure out the mechanism.  This transference of antibodies is why breastfed babies have much lower incidences of GI infections compared to formula-fed babies.

Benefits for Mother:

NY Times article covering a study that found breastfeeding reduces the risk of rheumatoid arthritis in the mother.  Women who breastfed up to a year decreased their risk by 25% and women who breastfed for over a year reduced their risk by 50%!

Breastfeeding for 6 months or more has also been associated with a lower risk of certain types of breast cancer - luminal cancer as well as triple-negative cancer, which is very aggressive and particularly difficult to treat.  Another research group is suggesting that lactation-based therapies could provide a component to a natural, non-toxic, anti-cancer therapy.

WHY then, may I ask did a recent study find that 94% of the nearly 1300 hospitals surveyed in east coast states from Maine to Mississippi are distributing formula samples to new mothers, even though multiple studies have shown that hospital-based distribution of formula samples is associated with reduction in exclusive breastfeeding rates, and opposition to this has been voiced by The American Academy of Pediatrics, World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists??

(measured in nanograms of hormone per liter of water)

90ng/L Estradiol - a natural estrogen, prescribed for HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy)

53ng/L Norethindrone - used in BCPs (Birth Control Pills), HRT, and menstruation regulation

30ng/L Levonorgestrel - used in BCPs and morning after pills

The latter two are synthetic progestagens, compounds which mimic progesterone.  Human and animal excretion is considered the primary source of natural and synthetic estrogens and progestagens found in aquatic ecosystems.  Some of these hormones have been shown to reach our drinking water as well.  These hormone levels are sufficient enough to have endocrine-disrupting effects in wild aquatic ecosystems, which are receiving the effluent.  In some fish, exposure to as little as 1ng/L of a hormone can result in hermaphroditism, feminization and decreased fertility.  The numbers found in the Montreal effluent were between 30 and 90 times that amount!  Pretty scary.

Study Reference: Viglino L., K. Aboulfadl, M. Prevost, S. Sauve. 2008. Analysis of natural and synthetic endocrine disruptors in environmental waters using online preconcentration coupled with LC-APPI-MS/MS. Talanta 76: 1088-1096.

Balick, Michael J., Jillian M. De Gezelle and Rosita Arvigo. 2008. Feeling the Pulse in Maya Medicine: An Endangered Tool for Diagnosis, Therapy and Tracking Patients’ Progress. EXPLORE-The Journal of Science and Healing 4(2):113-119.

I was also busy with preparations for my return to southern Belize for another season of fieldwork. I spent 3 months in the Toledo District, completing 26 interviews this trip. Now I am back in NYC for a few weeks to touch base and handle stateside responsibilities. And.. planning my next trip back to Central America in June. Last but certainly not least of the news, before heading to Belize in February, I was blessed with the opportunity to assist in 2 beautiful births. One was that of a colleague and great new friend, and the other was my sister’s first birth. Below is the story of my niece Hazel’s birth day.

I arrived in Philadelphia on December 22nd, Melissa’s EDD (Estimated Date of Delivery). I had been prepared to head to Philly at any point in the couple weeks prior, but she and the baby were not yet ready. First time moms go late more often than they go early, so it was no big surprise. By the 22nd, I had tied up all loose ends in New York, was relieved from any other responsibilities and was planning to be in Pennsylvania for Christmas anyway, so I decided to head down and wait for Melissa to go into labor. Contractions of varying degrees had come off and on for days. Eleven days later, around 8:30am on January 2nd, I was still asleep in the guest bedroom. I heard Melissa’s voice at the door, saying “Jill, it’s time.” I woke up and saw Melissa and my brother-in-law, Julian standing in the doorway. At that point I was not sure how long she had been laboring in this early stage before they decided to wake me, so I jumped up out of bed, took a quick shower and put on clean, comfortable clothes - yoga pants and a hoodie.

Melissa laid down in bed for a while, listening to her hypnobirthing music on her iPod, while the contractions were not too strong. Julian and I started to fill the birthing pool with the warmest water we could get from the sink via hose, supplemented by large pots of hot water we heated on the stove. Soon after the midwife arrived. Melissa came down to the living room and got in the pool and midwives #2 and #3 arrived. The whole practice was excited for Melissa’s long-awaited homebirth, so everyone came out for the event! We had Melissa get out of the the pool and try laboring in different positions for several hours. When she settled into letting her instincts guide her movements, she began to move like women move in middle eastern dance, as in “bellydance.” I knew this was one of the purported origins of the movements, but it was fascinating to see it so clearly. These natural movements seemed to be her instinctual response to the sensation of the contractions. They are also conducive to enabling the baby to descend into proper position.

It was a long labor followed by a long period of pushing, and the midwife thought at one point that Melissa may need to go to the hospital to complete the pushing and birth the baby, due to her exhaustion. Hearing that gave Melissa the motivation to return to the birthing pool and have some unwanted sips of sugar-spiked OJ, which rejuvenated her enough to get back in the bed and start pushing again. We could see the baby’s hair emerging and retreating with every pushing cycle. Finally her head emerged and it was such an emotional moment for everyone in the room (sister/doula, husband, mother, mother-in-law, 3 midwives and a midwife’s assistant) to see this adorable, chubby face come to light. Melissa took a quick break from pushing, then resumed and next came the baby’s upraised fist, followed by the rest of her body. With the help of midwife #2, Melissa lifted the baby onto her chest. Hazel Charlotte was born at 10:07pm! The baby started breastfeeding soon after and Melissa delivered the placenta. At this point we were all down in the living room, so after Melissa was cleaned and tended to, 4 of us hoisted her up by the sheet she was laying on and carried her up the stairs of their old Victorian house to the bedroom on the 2nd floor. Everyone gathered around to watch the baby get weighed. A very impressive 9lb 10oz!! Mind you that my sister is 5′2”, 105lbs at her non-pregnant weight. This all natural homebirth was no small feat! Melissa had a long recovery, but says it was all worth it and would definitely birth at home again.

In other news, a friend forwarded me some information a month or so ago about a really interesting situation in southwestern Nigeria. In the town of Igbo-Ora, population 60,000, a local elder asserts that there is hardly a family without a set of twins or triplets. Some parents in the town even have several sets of twins! According to population experts, Nigeria as a country has one of the highest rates of multiple births, but this particular part of the country seems to be particularly populated with high numbers of multiples.

No one seems to really be quite sure why this is. Some have suggested that it is perhaps a genetic predisposition that accounts for this strange phenomenon. Most interestingly, is the diet-related hypothesis. The Igbo-Ora population consumes a local yam, called agida (Dioscorea, I imagine) in high quantities, utilizing it as a staple food. Yams contain compounds which mimic human estrogens. This was demonstrated for the first time this year by Cheng et al., who found estrogenic activity in all 7 species/varieties of Dioscorea they screened.

It’s interesting to review and compile all these different articles related to the effects of estrogen or lack of estrogen on the human body. It is related to my doctoral work and helps me to have a greater understanding of hormonal regulation of various physiological functions. For instance, one example currently very relevant is my sister’s pregnancy. She has experienced fertility issues for the last several years. In the spring, after I had been reading extensively on female hormones and health for months to prepare for writing grant proposals and beginning my research, I noticed that she had been displaying signs of estrogen deficiency. I suggested that she begin taking a mixed phytoestrogen supplement, and a month later she was pregnant! Now 9 months later, here we are this moment trying to determine if her contractions are indicative of the onset of true labor or if bebe needs a few more days before she’s ready.

Image credit: AFP

Estrogenic yam study reference: Cheng, Wei-Yi, Yueh-Hsiung Kuo and Ching-Jang Huang. 2007. Isolation and Identification of Novel Estrogenic Compounds in Yam Tuber (Dioscorea alata Cv. Tainung No. 2). J. Agric. Food Chem. 55: 7350-7358.