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Women’s Health News
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Women’s health news, information, and resources from a medical
librarian
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Recent Posts
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* ACOG’s “Conscience” Statement on Refusing Care Due to
Religious Beliefs
* Grooming for the Gyno? Not Necessary
* Fetal Mortality Rates by Race/Ethnicity
* Foreign Rectal Bodies
* Seriously? On HIV and Isolation
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Top Posts
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* Grooming for the Gyno? Not Necessary
* How to Do a Pelvic Exam
* Bloody Baby Pictures Banned by MySpace
* What Not To Wear *In Your Vagina*
* RepHresh? ReNo.
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Rachel Walden, MLIS (Nashville, TN)
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ACOG’s “Conscience” Statement on Refusing Care Due to Religious
Beliefs
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Posted by Rachel on December 17, 2007
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has released a
statement on “conscientious refusal in reproductive medicine,”
intended to guide providers and spurred on by incidents of
contraception, abortion, and fertility treatment refusals. Naturally,
anti-choice groups (many of whom are *not* professional medical
organizations) have written ACOG a letter asking that it be withdrawn.
Find out more, with links to the statement and response documents, in
my post at Our Bodies Our Blog.
Posted in Abortion, Access, Rights, & Choice, Contraception, Health,
Pregnancy, Women's Health | 1 Comment »
Grooming for the Gyno? Not Necessary
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Posted by Rachel on December 15, 2007
There’s a kind of hilarious 200+ comment thread over at Jezebel on
whether you should shave your legs and bush prior to your annual exam.
Apparently some folks think their healthcare provider might be
offended and gossip about them if they don’t. If your provider does
that, you need to switch, pronto, because that is just unprofessional
and wrong. Others seem to think it’s some kind of “courtesy” to shave
or wax prior to the exam. There was a thread at some blog recently
(sorry, can’t remember which one), and the providers there all said
they really didn’t care. The Midlife Midwife says the same thing.
Honestly, I can’t see why they would care. I worry more about my feet
stinking.
A few providers (well, they claim to be) turned up in the thread, and
also asserted that it matters not one whit to them:
“As a nurse, I can honestly tell all of you that when you’re a
healthcare professional you become ‘ungrossoutable’. I can guarantee
you that your leg hair and pubes mean nothing to your dr. and that
they probably don’t even notice.”
“I am an OB/GYN. Trust me on this one. I don’t give a rat’s @$$ if
patients shave or not. It does not make my job ‘easier’ in any way
either if there is no pubic hair. We used to discuss this in my
(mostly) all female residency among ourselves. Why are so many women
sporting Brazilians, ‘The Hitler’, and otherwise denuded vulvas? What
is up with that?”
“I’m a medical doctor, though not an OB/GYN, and I can’t get over how
many otherwise intelligent women think it’s necessary to shave or wax
some or all of their labia so that the doc can ‘get a better look’.
What the f!#k? Shave or wax because you want to. Don’t do it for the
doc’s sake, because it doesn’t assist us at all. Thank you and have a
nice day.”
“I work at a reproductive health clinic- our clients will do all sorts
of things to ‘look good’ down there before a visit (including
glitter!). But honestly, it doesn’t impress us much. If you want to be
nice to your gyno:
1. make sure your feet don’t reek.
2. tidying up is enough. you don’t need to get a sphinx to get a pap.
3. don’t have sex 24hrs before your visit. there’s nothing like seeing
sperm on a pap slide!”
Glitter? Seriously? Look, do whatever you want to your vulva, but it’s
not necessary to do so to get your pap. Recent showering is good
enough. And, no, you can’t shave your “vagina.”
Posted in Body Image & Eating Disorders, Funny, Health, Vaginas &
Vulvas, Women's Health | 17 Comments »
Fetal Mortality Rates by Race/Ethnicity
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Posted by Rachel on December 14, 2007
The CDC highlighted this figure in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality
Weekly Report; it’s part of a larger 2004 report [PDF] on U.S. fetal
and perinatal mortality.
Fetal Mortality Rates,* by Race/Ethnicity of Mother — United States,
2004
m649qsf.gif
* Fetal deaths at >20 weeks gestation per 1,000 live births and fetal
deaths in specified group.
Unfortunately, the CDC reports that the disparity in mortality rates
is not well understood:
A large body of literature has attempted to explain the much
higher perinatal and infant mortality rates for black women. An
important intermediate variable in this discussion is the much
higher rate of preterm delivery for non-Hispanic black mothers,
compared with non-Hispanic white and Hispanic mothers, but the
reasons for this disparity are not well understood. Factors
frequently mentioned as contributing to the black-white perinatal
mortality gap are racial differences in maternal preconceptional
health, infection, income, access to quality health care, stress
and racism, and cultural factors; however much of the black-white
disparity in perinatal mortality remains unexplained.
Posted in Birth, Health, Health Research, Pregnancy | 1 Comment »
Foreign Rectal Bodies
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Posted by Rachel on December 13, 2007
Y’all, this is exactly why sex toys for anal/rectal use need to have a
flared base.
Posted in Miscellaneous, Sex & Sex Education | 2 Comments »
Seriously? On HIV and Isolation
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Posted by Rachel on December 13, 2007
Yesterday’s post on HIV, both Huckabee’s comments and travel
restrictions, has stirred up some interesting reactions, with comments
such as “the public would prefer these loose cannons locked up to
prevent spread to innocent people.” Obviously, I disagree. Come on
over and join the discussion.
Posted in HIV/AIDS | No Comments »
Huckabee, HIV/AIDS, Travel, and Bigotry
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Posted by Rachel on December 12, 2007
You’ve probably heard about Mike Huckabee’s 1992 statement about
isolating HIV/AIDS patients, and his subsequent defense, essentially,
“It was so long ago, we didn’t know anything then.” As it turns out,
we knew some time prior to 1992 that casual contact wasn’t an HIV
transmission risk. We also continue to have travel policies that
stigmatize HIV/AIDS patients to no significant public health benefit
(again, because of the casual contact issue), and the Department of
Homeland Security is proposing changes that do little to help.
Find out more in my most recent Our Bodies Our Blog post, HIV-Related
Bigotry in Politics.
Posted in Access, Rights, & Choice, Ethics, Government, HIV/AIDS,
Health | 1 Comment »
Prisons and Reproductive Rights
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Posted by Rachel on December 12, 2007
RH Reality Check is talking reproductive rights and prisoners - see
Powerless in Prison: Sexual Abuse Against Incarcerated Women and What
Do Prisons Have to Do with Reproductive Rights?.
I’d also point you back to the Radical Doula’s post on the prison
doula project.
Posted in Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice | No
Comments »
Waxman Calls for Investigation into Conditions at Kabul
Maternity Hospital
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Posted by Rachel on December 10, 2007
What happened when the U.S. got involved in the Rabia Balkhi maternity
hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, ostensibly to improve maternity care
and the infant death rate? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been
trying to find out, and, following up on their reporting, Rep. Henry
Waxman is demanding to know more. According to the AJC’s reporting,
visitors in 2003 found feces on the walls and placentas piling up in
sinks just a month after former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson stated
that “Today is a new day in Afghanistan, where we now have a new
hospital for women to receive top-notch health care.”
This is the same hospital profiled in the documentary Motherland
Afghanistan, which I previously reviewed.
Head on over to Our Bodies Our Blog for more details, including links
to much of the AJC’s coverage and documentation, as well as Waxman’s
letter to HHS.
Posted in Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Birth,
Global Issues, Government, Health, Women's Health | 1 Comment »
Sunday Morning Linkage - Health Discussions, Forced Sterilization,
and More
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Posted by Rachel on December 9, 2007
I just learned of the blog “Cure This,” which seems to be hosting some
interesting commentary on issues around health and healthcare.
One recent post addressed routine infant circumcision in the U.S.,
provoked by this physician commentary in U.S. News & World Report. Dr.
Healy’s opinion piece includes this statement:
I caution parents, however, against delaying the decision until
the child is old enough to decide for himself. Get real. Not many
teenage boys would relish the discussion, let alone the act. Nor
do I think they would have the perspective to weigh the medical
pros and cons.
Just, wow. I can understand that this is a touchy subject among
parents, and appreciate a weighing of the medical evidence (which,
incidentally, I don’t think is thorough enough in the opinion piece).
But to suggest that parents go ahead and circumcise their infant boys
just because they don’t want to have an awkward conversation later? I
have no words.
Likewise, this post on Cure This led me to another interesting blog I
hadn’t seen before, “Mississippi Appendectomy,” which focuses on the
history and current state of coercive sterilization. The About page
explains that “Mississippi appendectomy” is:
A phrase made popular by Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer
referring to involuntary sterilization procedures. Beginning
during the heyday of the American eugenics movement (1920s and
1930s), poor black women were made subject to hysterectomies or
tubal ligations against their will and without their knowledge.
The practice was considered particularly frequent in the Deep
South, although coercive sterilization practices took place in
many areas of the country and also affected other women of color,
women with physical disabilities whom physicians judged to be
âunfit to reproduce,â and poor white women as well.
The site compiles news and stories of forced or coerced sterilization
from the U.S. and beyond, and is well worth a look.
Posted in Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Global
Issues, Health, Web Resources, Women's Health | 2 Comments »
Making Your Holiday Donations Count for Women
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Posted by Rachel on December 8, 2007
Following up on this post at Tiny Cat Pants, I’ve been browsing around
a lot of blogs by women of color to try to understand what I may be
blind to in my own feminism, and what I may be missing when I talk
about women’s health from my middle class professional white woman
perspective. These three posts by brownfemipower at the Women of Color
blog particularly stuck with me, and reminded me that there is a lot
of work to be done that I haven’t been fully aware of. I also read a
lot of the critiques of Jessica Valenti of Feministing’s book, Full
Frontal Feminism, of both the cover and the content, and I agree with
a lot of the points made, so maybe I’m just in a particularly
anti-Feministing mood at the moment.
The thing that is bothering me, that has been bothering me for a
couple of days but the critiques mentioned above inspired me to
finally write about, is the ongoing call for donations to Feministing
so they can upgrade their website. They’re trying to raise $5,000, and
at last count, they had almost $4,000. That’s $4,000 raised in just 4
days. Look, I understand that websites cost money, and people want to
get paid for their work. Also, people are obviously free to spend
their disposable income, if they’re privileged enough to have
disposable income, however they see fit. However, I can’t shake this
nagging feeling that a lot more real good could be done for women by
directing donations to organizations doing real work on the ground to
improve women’s lives rather than funding a website upgrade.
The solicitation is kind of insidious, making the need all about
inclusion - many of the critiques of Feministing I’ve been reading
have essentially said, “We don’t care about being ‘included’ or some
throwaway link to our sites, we want you to actually understand and
care about what we’re talking about, and not as those we’re some
‘them’ you can occasionally mention. We want you to understand that
when you’re speaking to heads of state, you’re not currently actually
speaking for many of us that you claim to be including in your
speech.” If I understand it correctly, that is.
We’re really excited about this, because it means that we’ll be
community-building, not just blogging. Now, anyone can sign up to
create their own diary–but as part of our ongoing effort to bridge
online and “real life” activism, we’re also going to be inviting
certain women’s organizations to start diaries that we’ll
highlight on Feministing. We’re hoping that this will not only
help to shine a light on the important work that women are doing
across the country, but that it will also get these organizations
more involved in online work. But most importantly, we want to do
this upgrade so that we can open up Feministing to everyone who
wants to get involved. Whether it’s writing a blog, advocating for
an organization, or just reading–we want Feministing to be a
one-stop online activism shop.
So the commenters jump on that with their questions about their
usernames and how they can participate and how very excited they are
to be included. Nobody, so far, has said, “You know, if I had the
power to summon $4,000 at will, I’d be directing it to other causes
left and right.” I feel like the setup is, “Hey, if you pay us, we
might let you have a little bit of what we have,” what they have being
recognition/traffic. And here is the part where I have to admit that,
while I don’t always appreciate the tone of the site, I’m glad that
being listed on the blogroll occasionally drives someone my way - I
get to have a small piece of that recognition/traffic. But wouldn’t
advocacy for the “important work” of existing organizations be better
served by channeling some funds their way, rather than just giving
them a place to speak which they could have just as well done on their
own?
I recognize that donating to help Feministing and donating to worthy
organizations don’t have to be mutually exclusive - if you have
disposable income, you can split it among things however you want. It
just sort of floors me that a blog (even a well known one) can put out
a call for a website upgrade and rack up $4,000 in just a few days.
Maybe it’s that they are well known, and so they have this power to
raise funds, and I wish the funds were going to be used for something
more concrete, more productive, more real to the women they claim to
want to help/talk about. How much good could $5,000 do for a community
organization? Wouldn’t “real life” activism be better served by
channeling money to it instead of to a website? What if you could put
out one donation call a month to help women, and raise that kind of
money every single time? I just fail to see how reworking the website,
even if there are additional forums and posters and the like, can
bring attention to these causes in a way that just highlighting them
on a highly visited blog (which they can already do) couldn’t.
I don’t know, maybe I don’t have to make it such an either/or issue,
and I know that I get irritated when anti-feminist folks trot out the
“feminists suck because they should be doing more” lines, but it’s
irking me and I wanted to express it.
I’d like to build a list of organizations doing important work that
I’m sure would be happy to accept your donations. I know for a fact
that I’ve omitted several important orgs, especially local ones,
through my simply not being aware of them/not having found them yet.
Likewise, there may be issues with how some organizations go about
their work that I am simply not informed about yet - your insight is
wanted. Please do not take this list as an endorsement of any of these
organizations - do your homework, because I’m only just encountering
some of these groups. Please do leave your suggestions in the
comments, and I will update the list (items with an * are reader
suggestions). Some initial suggestions:
Amnesty International
Asian Immigrant Women Advocates
Center for Health, Environment and Justice
Center for Health and Gender Equity
Center for Reproductive Rights
Communities Against Rape and Abuse
Critical Resistance
EngenderHealth
The Fistula Foundation*
Global Fund for Women
Human Rights Campaign
Human Rights Watch
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
Indigenous Environmental Network
International Women’s Health Coalition
Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network
Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker Program [I’m biased because I’m
on their board]
Medical Students for Choice*
Modest Needs*
National Advocates for Pregnant Women
National Domestic Violence Hotline
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
National Women’s Health Network
Our Bodies Ourselves [I’m biased b/c I write for their blog]
Planned Parenthood
Pretty Bird Woman House
Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network
United Nations Population Fund
Women’s Health and Environment Network
YWCA*
Posted in Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Global
Issues, Health, Help Somebody, Web Resources, Women's Health | 12
Comments »
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