My name is Catherine Morgan, I'm a writer, nurse, and mother. This is a blog about women's issues, health & wellness, inspirational thoughts, and other stuff too. If you like this blog, you will love BlogHer.com where I am also a contributing editor for Health & Wellness.
Find out all the places I blog at by going to catherine-morgan.com.
I think it is well known that as we get older we have a more difficult time getting pregnant, but I was shocked to hear these new statistics on fertility. It seems that 90 percent of a woman’s eggs are gone by age 30, and only 3 percent remain by age 40. Ninety Percent of eggs are GONE! That’s a huge number. That’s a scary number.
It’s common knowledge that women have more difficulty conceiving as they age, but this is the very first study believed to quantify the number of eggs lost and it shows that the decline is more rapid than previously believed. Over time, the quality of ovarian eggs also deteriorates, increasing the difficulty of conception and the risk of having an unhealthy baby. The study was based on information collected from 325 women of varying ages in the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe.
Dr. Marie Savard, “Good Morning America” medical contributor, visited “GMA” to discuss the issue and its implications for moms-to-be. “Women lose eggs a lot faster than we thought,” she said. As you get older, conceiving is “much more difficult…Even all those assisted reproductive techniques are challenges.”
“That biological clock does tick,” she said, adding that her advice to women who want kids is, “the sooner the better.”
I imagine this news is going to cause a great deal of anxiety to women in their 30′s who were holding off having children. What do they do? Do they drop everything and try to have a baby before their eggs run out? And how will this affect women who want to pursue a career before motherhood? Are women going to have to start choosing motherhood over career for fear of future infertility?
Severe depression may silently break a seemingly healthy woman’s heart. Doctors have long known that depression is common after a heart attack or stroke, and worsens those people’s outcomes. Monday, Columbia University researchers reported new evidence that depression can lead to heart disease in the first place.
The scientists tracked 63,000 women from the long-running Nurses’ Health Study between 1992 and 2004. None had signs of heart disease when the study began, but nearly 8 percent had evidence of serious depression.
The depressed women were more than twice as likely to experience sudden cardiac death — death typically caused by an irregular heartbeat, concluded the 12-year study, published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. They also had a smaller increased risk of death from other forms of heart disease.
A strained marriage can lead to heart disease risks for women. A new study show the chances of developing depression, leading to metabolic syndrome and obesity is worse for women in strained marriages than for men. The result is increased heart disease risk for women who are in an unhappy marriage.
A man purposefully puts RU-486 in a woman’s drink, causing her to miscarry, not just once but twice (CNN News clip).
This is truly a heinous crime and an affront to a woman’s right to choose. A woman’s reproductive rights are sacred, and just as no man should be aloud to force a woman to have a child if she is not ready, no man should be able to force her to lose a child if she is choosing to keep it.
This man (and I use that term lightly) should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, sending a clear message to any man or woman who would consider poisoning a pregnant woman for the purpose of having her miscarry.
Since Wisconson is one of 37 states that has a fetal homicide law, one of many charges this [sorry excuse for a] man will face is attempted first-degree intentional homicide of an unborn child.
However, I think the main focus of this case should be the violation of the woman, although I have no problem with this man being charged with murder since the state already has a law that allows for that. Since there are many other charges as well as murder here, I would leave it up to the judge or jury to decide the extent of this person’s punishment. Regardless of the charges, I would hope that this case be treated very seriously, and have serious consequences.
It seems odd to me, but many are taking this clear criminal violation of a woman, and turning it into a debate over abortion. For example…If a woman has the right to terminate her own pregnancy…Why shouldn’t a man be able to secretly and maliciously terminate a woman’s pregnancy if that’s what he wants to do? No, I’m not making this stuff up…
Abusive Relationships: Are you or someone you know in one? How can you tell? What can you do? — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)How do you know if you are in an abusive relationship? Do you know someone who is? What warning signs can you look for?
Since nearly one third of American women have been in some sort of abusive relationship, chances are that one of these women may be you or someone you know. So, what do you do? How do you help? I think having as much information as possible is a good place to start.
The other day my mother received a phone call from her friend, “Louise.” She said to my mother, “Have you heard?”
“No. Heard what?”
“I have a lover!” she unabashedly announced.
All this might not be so shocking, except for the fact that Louise is 94 years old!
She went on to explain how after moving into her assisted living community, she met a 90 year old man, who we’ll call “Leonard.” Leonard is twice widowed and Louise is widowed after 60 years of marriage.
If you or someone you know is in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship, there is a lot of information available and people that can help. Below is an article and links to help you understand domestic violence and abuse, and to find help. You are not alone.
How do you know if you are just “blue”, or you are really suffering from depression? The following is from an article found at www.uihealthcare.com. Depression is nothing to be ashamed about, all of us will feel depressed at some or many points in our lives, and knowing when to seek professional help, can be what saves your own life, or someone you know. As with everything in life, being “aware”, is the first step in conquering the problem. This article has a lot of valuable information, in educating poeple about depression, and the different types of depression.
Choosy moms confide their strange new ways of thinking in people who make them feel safe. They are especially choosy when it comes to medical professionals and friends. They also cultivate with spouses a milieu in which they don’t feel overexposed or vulnerable.
FINDING EMPOWERMENT THROUGH ADVERSITY — by Catherine Morgan
When we are suffering it is very difficult, if not impossible, to see the “light at the end of the tunnel”. But, it is there. You will get through it. And, in time your wounds really will be healed.
Can something good come out of adversity? Often in the face of adversity, we are unable to see anything through our pain. The only thing we can think about, are questions. Why is this happening to me? How will I go on? How will I survive? These are all reasonable questions, and in the depth of your pain you will ask them, and more. But, there are no answers to these questions. Only after you realize this, will you be able to go on, and let go.
When we are angry at people in are life. When we aren’t talking to people in our life. When we hate people in our life. When we are doing these things, we are weakening ourselves, we are hurting ourselves, we are hating ourselves. That is because, when we don’t forgive, we are allowing our heart to be weighed down with negativity. But, we already know that. So why do we do it? Why don’t we forgive?
My theory is; that we really don’t know how to forgive. I mean, saying you “forgive” someone, isn’t really “forgiving” them, is it? What if there were actually steps you could take to forgive? Kind of a “12 step” program for forgiveness, only with less steps. See if this works for you. Because, when you forgive someone, you are pushing anger out of your heart and making more room for love to get in, and love is what really matters.
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