Birth Control Pills Linked to Lupus

Read the article here.

Suissa's team found that oral contraceptives were associated with a 1.5-fold increased risk of developing lupus. The risk was greatest during the first three months after starting "the Pill" -- when there was a 2.5-fold increased risk.The researchers speculated that increased estrogen from oral contraceptives could be responsible for the increased risk. Estrogen can affect the body's immune response, which could trigger a genetic predisposition to the disease, the scientists said.

And here is my plug, albeit annoying to some:

Natural Family Planning!!

NFP is not just beneficial for Catholics or religious folk.
NFP offers so many health benefits, especially a deeper knowledge and understanding of your body. In fact, that is the primary reason I prefer NFP. Probably it should be religious reasons, but in fact it's the health aspect of it.

Not to mention that NFP, in all of its various forms, has come such a long way. It is so much more reliable today than in years past, and there are so many materials out there to make it more user-friendly, even if you have an irregular cycle.

Voila!
Click here to see the many different methods of NFP.

Both an Aid and a Penance *Edited*

*Edited to offer the link for the Creighton Method of NFP (which is always on my sidebar under Links) Click here for the Creighton site.

That's how NFP was described in this article I read (thanks to Vicki for the link).

Don't get the wrong idea. It was a breath of fresh air, this article. No beating around the bush. I think any true NFP practitioner would agree that it's bluntly accurate. Thank God for that.

Here are my thoughts:
1.) "You can't talk to experienced older couples, either, or you'll get an earful about the bad old days of rhythm-and-blues and 23 children."
Boy have we run into that numerous times. Starting with my own parents, too. They married in 1960, and at that time, NFP mostly consisted of circling dates on your calendar, guesstimating. Being extremely unreliable, no wonder they scoffed at NFP.
What I scoff at, though, is there unwillingness to listen to how NFP has truly changed, and it can be used successfully. (requiring much patience).

Oh, and to add in, many old fogies seem to believe that being fully Catholic= having as many babies as your body can squeeze out. NOT TRUE. The Catechism teaches no such thing. The Pope has never told his audience or written an encyclical stating that faithful Catholics have baby after baby after baby...
Rather, the correct teaching is that we stay open to the gift of life (even when it doesn't seem like a gift), and allow the twofold purpose of marriage to manifest between a wife & husband. For some couples, they feel large (and very large) families are apart of God's plan for them. For others, they feel they have grave reasons to limit their family size (and for some that number may be just one child).

2.) Nor can you talk to your doctor, who will write "family planning: nothing" on your medical record (especially if you've caught that Sexually Transmitted Disease known as "pregnancy").
Something else I've experienced. Finding a doctor when we moved here was a challenge, being that my first OB was an NFP-only physician. Not only did he support it, he also taught a mucus-only method. I felt so lucky to have that doctor.

We moved here and there was no such doctor closer than an hour away. I found a great OB, but only after firing one. The first one argued with me about NFP. She, an OB/GYN, actually pulled the old "you know what they call people who practice NFP? PARENTS!". Gosh, I guess she really wants to limit her patients (as well as my patience).
Making medical suggestions is one thing, but she showed no respect for my choice of family planning. She did not accept NFP as a credible form for child spacing.
I found that to be so disappointing on an intellectual level. She went to med school to learn and master the female body, yet she (herself a female) couldn't grasp the natural cycles of a woman, using it to manipulate it for or against conceiving?

3.) But for many of us, uniting our wills with God's sounds more like "Uncle."
Nothing else to say about this other than a big"WORD".

4.) It doesn't help that some proponents of NFP pretend that it's all togetherness and respect, profundity and cuddles.
Oh my, this could be the longest of my thoughts yet.
I remember when we were first learning Creighton, and our instructor was teaching us about SPICE. I wanted to bust out laughing. For the sake of respect I did not, but I couldn't believe the sugar-coated blur that seemed to be. Not that I don't think it makes sense, but I was beyond believing people when they said NFP was all honky-dory and rose petals.
What planet were they from?
One without sex drives?!
I mean, I advocate NFP too (or at least used to...I'm coming back around in my faith here), but I've always tried to be honest about it. I've also always tried to relate it to the fact that any form of birth control (not saying NFP and birth control are one in the same) can have its tribulations and frustrations. Nothing is exempt from that. So long as humans are the ones practicing a method, human nature will allow for error, misjudgement, forgetfulness, or misinterpretation of a bodily sign.
I think the nice thing is that if two people are working truly together for charting, then you do actually develop a whole new level of respect in that relationship. One you didn't have before adding in intimacy and shared responsibility for possible pregnancies.

5.) Talk to your priest.. But don't reject out of hand a celibate man's ideas about sex: After hearing 46 million confessions, he probably knows more than you do
I've been guilty of this. And this is the argument I hear most from fallen Catholics or non-Catholics. "The Church doesn't belong in my bedroom". I've even said it myself.
The problem is once you've learned something, you can't unlearn it.
Why does the Church interfere in the bedroom?
Same as any church.
God's ministers are meant to teach us right from wrong, and the value of a life. Obviously the first value of a life is at the moment of conception. Conception is a [possible] consequence of sex, so it's perfectly sensible. I don't think the Church is trying to tell us ow to have sex or when to do it. I think the Church is trying to show us the spiritual depth of what we're doing. It may be frustrating, but most incredible things in life are at times.

6.) Try to understand why God wants this for you. He doesn't intend for you to be subserviently miserable
Something I've often caught myself thinking. You know, that He was making me suffer or punishing me, or simply not wanting me to enjoy sex or this life. Sounds immature, doesn't it? Maybe it is. But it's the truth.

7.) As long as it's acceptable for everyone else to talk about sex these days, why should Catholics be shy?
I've wondered this since I had "the talk". If we're supposed to be respectful of sex and its two-fold purpose, why should we be taught about it in a dirty or hushed manner? TALK ABOUT IT!
I have always been very open in this area. Maybe too open, but I don't get how you can be married and act like you don't know sex. Come on. I'm not trying to be perverted. I swear.
I'm very, very thankful for my NFP friends and the ones I can talk about it with openly. So so thankful.
I think we should have many more homilies on sex. More classes. Heck, we should have NFP support groups through our parishes! (ha ha...somewhat kidding here)

8.) Many disenchanted couples are suffering from a lack of honest information about NFP.
Yes yes yes. I notice it even among my own siblings.
More as to why we should talk about it, get the word out. Yo.
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Sorry for this crazy long post. Let's just say I feel the fire burning, so I had to go with it while I could. If you're still reading, I thank you. I hope it was worth it.

A Plus to the Period?

Scientists Say Menstrual Blood Can Repair Hearts

Scientists obtained menstrual blood from nine women and cultivated it for about a month, focusing on a kind of cell that can act like stem cells.

Some 20 percent of the cells began beating spontaneously about three days after being put together in vitro with cells from the hearts of rats. The cells from menstrual blood eventually formed sheet-like heart-muscle tissue.

The success rate is 100 times higher than the 0.2-0.3 percent for stem cells taken from human bone marrow...

100 times higher. Incredible.

I sure don't enjoy my period, but it's kind of cool to think God designed it with more than one purpose in mind. To think that menstrual blood could be reserved as a safety net for your future self, or your gene pool later on down the road. I find it to be very intriguing.

(On a side note, this makes me think about women on forms of birth control which put a halt to their periods, limiting them to 4 times a year, or even worse, "freeing" them of their periods altogether. If, in the grand scheme of things, our own cycles could serve as medical miracle-workers, I will definitely be able to look at menstrual discomforts in a different light. I dare to say I'd maybe even be grateful I didn't prevent my body from going though the natural cycles it was meant to sustain.)

While I'm In A Serious Mood

My previous post was on abortion & men's rights, and now I'm touching on something that precedes that in more ways than one.

The birth control pill, again.

Without adding my own ramblings to bore you, I want to mention Crystal's post from Tuesday. An excellent post, Crystal writes about "pill goggles", and the way the artificial hormones in the pill alter our state of being, particularly decision making in regards to the type of man we're attracted to. (Stemming from the article she mentions, Seven Quirky Facts About Chemistry).

Pretty interesting, isn't it?