Tag: health

Eve: How the Female Body drove 200 million years of human evolution – Womb

~ Swathi Chandrasekaran ~ Leave a comment

Onto Chapter 2 – Womb, where more of my utter lack of knowledge is revealed in the form of things that I learnt.

Horrors of Motherhood

  • Many salmon species die soon after spawning eggs, mostly due to the strain the upstream journey demands from them. Their corpses fertilize the waters for the new hatchlings.
  • More terrifying are certain species of fireflies, which don’t possess mouths as adults. They live frenzied lives aimed at reproducing, laying eggs, and dying before they lose all the resources their body has consolidated from their pupal stage. I’ll never be able to see fireflies the same.

Most marsupial babies are born at what humans would call an ‘incredibly underdeveloped’ state, or about 7 weeks into what a human baby would be. They are born with absurd forearm strength though, and are able to hoist themselves and clamber into their mother’s pouches. Researchers have recorded ultrasound videos of wallaby fetuses practicing this movement in their mother’s wombs! Here’s a video of it, maybe it would make more sense to you than it did to me.

Placental Wars

The placenta is one of the only organs in the world made by two separate living organisms – both the embryo and the mother contribute to it.

Preeclampsia, with an occurrence rate of over 5% in American women, is a life-threatening high blood pressure disorder associated with pregnancy. While the disorder can be controlled through frequent checks and blood pressure medication, the only real cure for it is to deliver the baby and placenta. It is caused by two proteins in the uterine lining that are responsible for increasing blood pressure in the arteries to enable the delivery of more blood and nutrients for the growing fetus. When they overdo their job, they cause higher blood pressure which leads to preeclampsia. There is interestingly, a third protein in the mix whose role was understudied until recently.

After implantation, the placenta sends out trophoblasts—cells that attack the uterine lining to secure resources for the embryo. The mother’s body doesn’t exactly greet this politely; it responds like an immune system confronted with an invader. So the mother’s body retaliates and attempts to decimate these invading trophoblasts. The human placenta, a step ahead, has devised sneaky ways to avoid this!

PP13, the third protein we spoke about, attacks veins around the uterus to cause a distraction for the trophoblasts to get in and do their thing.

In a healthy pregnancy, we want the placenta and the uterus to be in this war for 9 months, with neither side winning – a happy stalemate. If the placenta starts losing, it brings out more trophoblasts, causes more inflammation to veins in the uterus, and generally causes more havoc and brings on preeclampsia to the mother.

Ah, the wonders of motherhood.

Studies on the pros and cons of pregnancy are confusing:
  • Women who never give birth are less likely to develop autoimmune diseases compared to women who have given birth at least once.
  • Women who have given birth in their 20s are less likely to be at risk of certain kinds of cancers compared to women who have never been pregnant.
Also in the chapter:
  • Chicxulub, the apocalypse from an asteroid, 66 million years ago which wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs.
  • Permian Extinction Event, The Great Dying, considered the largest extinction event on our planet, 250 million years ago.

Good Read: Tits Up by Sarah Thornton

~ Swathi Chandrasekaran ~ Leave a comment

Sarah Thornton is a sociologist and writer. Most importantly for this book, she is also a patient of a mastectomy, and all the following breast implants and lift surgeries deemed as a package deal. In undergoing these procedures, she started to wonder more about her breasts, and the socio-cultural stigmas and taboos around it. And thereby started her journey of discovery, research, and writing for this book that beautifully presents the issues with how we view breasts, and the implications of it.

The book is broken down into chapters that focus on breasts in different ways: from the sexualization of them in strip clubs, the mammalian function of lactation, to cutting through the flesh in surgical theaters, designing bras for the right fit, and religious and pagan beliefs about breasts, Thornton covers each research area masterfully. She never judges the subjects of her conversation, and in the odd places where she does have biases and opinions, she mentions them explicitly for the readers. The chapter on the operations of Milk Banks in California, which explains the rise and dangers of formula as an alternative to breast milk was particularly insightful.

I learnt so much from this book, which I think makes for an excellent read especially alongside Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution which I’m currently also reading. Some fascinating, startling, and terrifying quotes and pieces of information were:

  1. “In some western African countries like Cameroon and Guinea-Bissau, the presence of breasts makes women so vulnerable to sexual violence that an alarming number of mothers and other family members subject their pubescent girls to a painful process called breast ironing, whereby breasts are cauterized, pounded, and bound over months to try to delay breast development.” https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/breast-ironing-cameroon-harmful-practice-girls/
  2. In Mali, ‘she whose breasts have fallen’ is a respectful term for an older woman, not a slur betraying derision or disgust.
  3. In Hindu mythology, Sati Mata, an aspect of Shakthi, sacrificed her life in an immolation in a sacred pyre. Her ashes are believed to have been strewn all across India and the Indian subcontinent, and there are temples associated with each of her body parts, including her breasts and vagina, which are all considered sacred. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakta_pithas
  4. “I recently asked my niblings, who attended a public high school in an affluent suburb in New York City, what words their friends use for breasts. My nephew, a 16 year old sophomore who socializes with his mates on the soccer team, openly rattled off six terms, starting with “rack” and ending with “tits”. My niece, an 18 year old senior, said that the only word the girls in her grade used regularly was “boobs”. This disparity in vocabulary is symptomatic of the gender inequalities embodied unconsciously by many Americans. It is also indicative of the larger problem of who defines and controls women’s bodies.”

So, what can we do? We can educate ourselves about our bodies, and refuse definitions and depictions from male-dominated society, we can reclaim our words and the power of our vocabulary. We can recommend and promote this book to our friends. We can stand tall, walk with our shoulders back, and walk with purpose and confidence, which we will also henceforth call, ‘Tits Up’.

I’ll end this review by thanking my friend for recommending this book to me, and for letting me borrow her copy of it.