Tag: women’s health
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The Dark Night of the Canadian Soul
I hesitate to refer to the 16th century mystic Spanish poet St. John of the Cross’ dark night of the soul, but I am troubled by the political process in which I feel engulfed. Swallowed… And yes, powerless. And it’s not so much that I disagree with the ideology expressed or dislike the personalities of…
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Menstrual Taboos
Culture shapes behaviour, attitudes and beliefs -or is it the other way around? The chicken or the egg? This has puzzled me since I was a child wondering why everybody I knew wore jeans but in pictures the people living in, say, India did not. And the members of my family –uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins- all…
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A Placental Tale
Her light brown hair was long and tied in a little pile on the top of her head like a haystack about to topple. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes were bright, and her face was lit with the jubilation that only the young experience at the start of a journey. She was happy –her whole…
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Once Upon a Time…
You learn new things every day; sometimes, learning about learning is one of them. I am learning about babies. As an obstetrician, I deal with them every day -or, more accurately, them as developing organisms- from shortly after conception until birth. Then, as the mother’s needs change -and the baby’s- I kind of lose track…
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Just Right Baby Bear?
There is a problem in the modern world, I think: we honestly believe there is an answer to any question we ask if we pursue it with enough effort. It leads to unrealistic expectations and a suspicion that there should be no need to compromise -or if we do, a sense of disappointment that it…
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The dangers of perceived wisdom
The Court of Public Opinion -an interesting phrase to be sure. It implies the judgemental assessment of an action, an idea -an opinion- by society at large. An interpretation, not necessarily impartial or even appropriate. A reaction, really, to something that stands out as different in some way from that Public’s perceived norms. A Culture’s value system is usually encapsulated in what…
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Midwifery… Deja vu all over again?
Well, I see that midwifery is back in the news again, so I thought I’d revisit the issue -my last look at it was in November, 2012. Its not that I’ve changed my opinions -I haven’t; nor that I have since discovered something new and compelling about the role of midwives in pregnancy -I continue…
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Hope springs Ephemeral?
I sometimes wander through medical journals like a tourist, stopping here to gaze admiringly at a headline, pausing there to read a letter or two. Occasionally, I stumble upon a piece of information tucked away like a child under a quilt on a winter bed -interesting stuff that would still not likely find its way onto the six…
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Postpartum Depression -Just words?
Postpartum depression -I know these are only words, medical words, I suppose: descriptors. Language. But for all we’ve done with these particular words, what little attention we seem to have paid to them, they are still only words. And yet they describe a condition that has dogged us for millennia: the darkness that follows pregnancies like a…
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