The 3 M's

The 3 M's of a woman's life are Menstruation, Motherhood and Menopause.

Menstruation is the physical change that makes a little girl progress towards becoming a young woman. The uterus, or womb, which has been there all along, but so far has done nothing, now begins to learn "how to grow a baby". Just like a bird building a nest and lining it carefully with feathers to make it soft and warm for the baby birds, so the uterus produces a thick lining for the baby to grow in. When the uterus realises there is no baby coming to live in it, it gets rid of this lining, which is made from blood, and the blood drains away out of the body and we call it having a period.

The word "period" has come to be used because it happens periodically, at fairly regular intervals, and lasts for a period of time, about 5 to 7 days. This is usually about once every 4 weeks, with a few days either side, so it can be 5 weeks, or even 3 weeks between the periods. If it is regularly only 3 weeks the girl could become anaemic from the frequency of bleeding, and a doctor would usually give some low-dose hormone tablets to get the periods on a more regular basis.

Fifty years ago most girls started having their periods at about 14 or 15 years of age, but today it is usually 12. The age is getting younger all the time, probably due to better nutrition and living conditions, but also it may well be affected by our modern way of living, with the mother's use of hormone medication, giving growth hormone to animals that are later eaten as meat, and using plastic to store our food in.

It is not unusual though for a girl to start her periods at age 10 or 11, and some girls of only 8 or 9 have to cope with what is really a woman's life while still only a little girl. So we need to explain to young girls about periods well before they are likely to happen, so that there is no confusion. Generally, if a child is old enough to ask the question, then she is old enough for the answer. A generation or two ago this was "hushed up" and not discussed, and our own mothers found it very difficult to talk about, and were relieved when schools brought in lessons on sex education given by the P.E. teacher.

In some countries the start of a girl's periods is cause for a family celebration, and it would be a good idea to have this in our own families - not necessarily a family celebration, but a time for mother and daughter perhaps to go out for a small meal on their own or with the aunties, where the girl could feel "special".

This idea could also be used at the age of 9 when the mother and aunties could take the girl out and talk about how it will be for her in a few years as she begins to grow up into a woman. The girl needs to know not only what periods are like, and why they happen, but how to deal with them, especially the very first time, although this may not be such a good idea if the meal is in a public restaurant!

Of course, we all know many negative aspects of that part of our lives, and we would need to be sure to emphasise the wonder of being a woman, after all, we were not God's first creation, we were the last. In other words, our Creator may well have practised on everything else until He reached perfection - and then God created woman!

It is at this time of great change in the girl's body that Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia can surface. These are diseases that have not occurred in history before our time. They are thought, by many people, to be caused by food. They are not. Just as rape has nothing to do with a person wanting sex, but demanding power over another person, so anorexia and bulimia are not caused by the person wanting or not wanting food. Food is just the vehicle the emotions are travelling in.

Anorexia and Bulimia mainly affect people with a personality sensitive to the needs of others, who are unable to cope with the cruelties of the world and want to leave it. The world is a negative place, saying and doing negative things, and she picks up on all of these things and feels overwhelmed by it and cannot cope. She does not know how to "stand up for herself", so she goes under.

Although a few boys are annorexic sufferers, the vast majority are girls, so I will use the word her instead of him. There is a constant inner voice telling her that she is no good, a failure. The only way she can cope is to become "extra good" so people will like her, and she might then learn how to like herself. She will try her hardest at school, work and home. She will pay attention to detail and others' needs, resulting in herself looking like a perfectionist. She clutches at every little comment from others that she has done something right, and treasures it like gold, while at the same time time distrusting what was said, knowing she does not deserve anything nice to be said about her. She thinks that if people knew what she was "really" like they would not have praised her.

There is a constant war going on in her mind between the positive and the negative - and the negative always wins, because that is who she has come to trust. She does not want to die, but she does not know how to want to live, so she sees the only way out is for her to die. She knows that not only does she deserve to die, because she is not worth enough to live, but also that she wants to be out of this cruel world. So she gravitates towards death, seeing it as inevitable. The more weight she loses, the less strength she has to fight it, and the stronger becomes her resolve that if she cannot do anything else right, then at least she can do this last thing right - to die.

Anorexia is just like a baby crying. The baby does not have the resources to help itself. The anorexic person does not either. She does not know what to do. She desperately needs someone "older and wiser" to put right the negative balance in her mind. She does not know how to do it because she does not see what other people see.

A person of a particular personality which is geared towards caring for the needs of others will sometimes accept being abused, sexually or otherwise, if it means her siblings escape being abused. Later it all catches up with her and she may fall victim to an eating disorder of either anorexia, bulimia or obesity. It is the negative build-up in the mind that organises it to happen.

When actors have to act an emotional scene in which they have to cry, the way they do that is to think of some time of great sadness in their life, and let those feelings come to the surface. Think, now, of some very sad time in your life. Remember how it felt. Then imagine there is someone sitting next to you. How could that person best comfort you? What do you want them to do? How would you feel then?

The needs to be comforted and to feel safe, are basic from birth onwards. A baby cries. It needs to be picked up. It does not always need to be fed. Sometimes it just needs to be cuddled. This need continues throughout life, as it is a way of transferring energy from the stronger person to the one needing it. It is not that the one needing it is necessarily weaker, but has used up more energy reserves that need to be replenished.

When dealing with a young person with anorexia, she will often have seen herself in the role of "parenting the family". She needs to be relieved of the heavy responsibility of carrying the emotional needs of siblings or parents. A child needs to be allowed to be a child, and if she has missed out on much of this it needs to be restored to her. She needs to be cuddled, read to, played board games with, and made crafts with, no matter what her actual age is.

Anorexia is not just low self-esteem, it is often no self-esteem. The spirit of the person can be fading away right before your very eyes, and it is a desperate situation to catch it before it goes. It is like watching a candle burn down to almost the end. Candles come in all shapes and sizes, but the thing that is common to all, is the wick that produces the flame. The most important part of a person is their spirit and this is what must be concentrated on in re-habilitation. The first inclination is to get her to eat, but it must be remembered, this is not about food. It is about the continual war in her mind, and unless it is challenged and overcome, the negative will always win.

Anorexia and bulimia can be managed, and to a great extent, overcome but may surface again at stressful times in the woman's life. Her basic personality will not change, so she must be taught how to manage the stark realities of life, and how to strengthen herself to deal with the negative influences in her mind. What is easy for someone else to accept in the world, will seem an enormous problem to her, and she must be shown ways of coping, while being surrounded with positive influences that acknowledge her value as a person. The words that will help in this situation are Encouragement, Value, Acknowledgement, Affection, Approval, Attention and Appreciation.

The next M of a woman's life is Motherhood - and this is usually where all the trouble starts! Some people have babies arrive before they are ready for them, and this can be devastating, and some people do not have the babies they long for, and this can be even more devastating. There are a great many things that can be done nowadays to help a woman conceive or adopt, but this does not take away the feeling of failure she has in the beginning, of not being able to do what other women seem to be achieve so easily.

It helps to understand just how much we have in our tummy so we can see that it is already pretty full, and if we put a baby on top of it all life becomes very uncomfortable.

We have 2 kidneys at waist level, at the back, protected by our hips. They filter all the fluid that comes in at the mouth, into the stomach and then enters the bloodstream. The kidneys each have a tube, the ureters, that carry this fluid, which is now called urine, down to the bladder where it is stored until it is passed out of the body. Urine should be a very pale yellow in colour, the colour of lemon juice. If it is darker than that, more like orange juice, it is an indication that we are not drinking enough water. The body is made up of over 80 % water and needs about 3 litres of fluid each day, about 2 litres of that fluid should be water. The bladder can easily hold about 2 cups of fluid, but after about an hour it sends signals to the brain that it has had enough of this and needs to get rid of it, so we have trained ourselves to go to the toilet.

This toilet training starts in the toddler years and takes a year or two to achieve in the daytime. Night-time is a very different matter, and most children's tummies are not mature enough to go through the night without wetting the bed, until they are about 5 or 6 years old. Certainly there are children who are dry at night by the age of 3 or 4, but then there are a lot of children who are still wetting the bed at age 8, 9, 10, but no-body talks about that. Most paediatricians will not investigate a child's bed-wetting until the age of 6 or 7, and then it is really not so much for the sake of the child, but to relieve stress on the mother.

One of the best things you can do about bed-wetting is to give the child plenty of water to drink during the morning and afternoon, to teach the body how to work properly in the daytime. Cordial and other sugary drinks upset the delicate balance of the body fluids and it is better to drink water. The child's brain needs to learn how to cope with the feeling of a full bladder, so a big cup of water can be drunk, then when the child feels the need to rush to the toilet about 45 minutes later, try to get him to hold on for a few seconds, then a few minutes. Boys tend to have more difficulty with bed-wetting than girls, and there are factors like personality and whether the child is a deep-sleeper that affect it as well. It helps if the child can take the wet sheets off the bed and put them in the washing machine, then put clean sheets on the bed. This makes him feel a responsible person, and not blamed, which is a different reaction. Constipation and a sluggish bowel can also affect bed-wetting. Many children seem to re-act to milk, cheese, chocolate and chocolate drinks, and they have a constipating effect on some people.

Adults, who have mostly got past the problem of bed-wetting, have different problems. Cystitis is caused by germs that travel up the channel from the outside world to the bladder. This channel is called the urethra and is only about 5 cm. (2 inches) long so it is easy for unwanted germs to get in from the outside. Girls should be taught at an early age that after passing urine they wipe themselves from front to back so no germs from the bowel are brought forward into the bladder. Teach them that they don't want to be back-to-front. Cystitis can also be caused by sexual intercourse, especially in women who are newly experiencing sex. The first episode of cystitis should be dealt with by a doctor, and a urine specimen sent off to the laboratory before antibiotics are started, but pharmacists are very helpful too. As with any infection there is a need to drink plenty of water, but because it hurts so much to go to the toilet and pass urine, people try to put this off by drinking less water without realising this is the very worst thing they can do.

Candida is another type of organism that can invade the urethra or vagina from the bowel. Many people only become aware of it when it causes a vaginal discharge, or pain and itching, called Thrush. A doctor can prescribe cream or pessaries to be put in the vagina, but this is usually only treating the symptoms. Homeopathic remedies will be more effective in treating the cause, but will take longer to achieve this. During this time anything you eat containing sugar or yeast will continue to feed the organism causing the Thrush, so great care must be paid to what is eaten. Candida may invade the mouth and stomach, vagina, or urinary system, and may travel further along the bowel. Thrush can affect anyone, male or female, at any age, including babies and the elderly. It often occurs when the person is under stress and "run down", and can be passed sexually from one partner to the other causing re-infection of each other.

The next opening to the urethra is the vagina, and further towards the back is the anal opening to the bowel. The bowel consists of a very long tube, over 30 feet long in adults, which processes food from the stomach, taking out of it all the nutrients it needs to be put into the bloodstream, and passing the waste products out of the body into the toilet. Food is pushed along the bowel by muscle action, and like any other muscle it can become weaker if not used very much. Processed foods have had a lot of the fibre stripped off them so there is not much left for the bowel to work on. When we see the leaves, skins and stalks on such foods as cabbage, celery, apples, oranges and sweetcorn we understand what the bowel longs for us to eat.

We also need to drink plenty of water otherwise the bowel gets panicky at the bottom end of it and extracts some of the water content to put into its own water-storage system, causing the body waste to be hard and constipated. This constipation can cause haemorrhoids, or piles, to appear at the bowel opening. They are little loops of skin that are filled with blood that cannot move on and has got stuck in one place, just like the varicose veins we may get in our legs. You can put cream from your doctor, pharmacist or homeopath on the piles, which will make life a lot more comfortable, but, just like varicose veins in your legs, once they are there they are not going to go away, you just have to stop them getting worse.

Constipation causes a lot more trouble than people realise as, if the body's waste products are not passed out of the body, they release toxic substances that build up and poison the whole system. You can imagine what your house would smell like if all the rubbish had to be collected in a bucket in the kitchen but was only emptied every few days. When this happens in people they become very lethargic, lack energy, lose interest in life and just want to lie around all day watching T.V. Gradually the rest of their body loses muscle tone and they gain weight, don't feel like eating properly, or eat sugary foods to comfort themselves because they feel so miserable. The bowel then has even less fibre to work on and shuts down even further, and so the whole process spirals downwards and the body begins literally to decay.

When this happens to children we usually have to give an enema, or the child can be taken into hospital to be put on to an I.V. drip for 3 days, containing medication that will force the body to push out the faecal matter that has accumulated in the bowel and become dehydrated and hard. Just like unblocking the kitchen sink, once this blockage is removed everything will start flowing freely once again. However, three things must be kept in mind

1. Good eating habits must be learned - lots of vegetables and fruit.
2. The poisons must be flushed out of the body with plenty of water.
3. The lower end of the bowel has lost its muscle tone and may become blocked again, so the bowel motions must be checked every day, by a parent, to see that enough is being passed. Cream from a pharmacy can be applied to the anal opening before a bowel motion is passed, to ease it through. Walking and other exercise will help to strengthen the muscles again.

Some children appear to have diarrhoea but in reality this is just fluid leaking past the constipated blockage, and a doctor will find this on feeling the child's tummy. It can take a whole year to re-establish good bowel tone so it is obviously better to keep it good in the first place. An easy way to remember what foods are best for the body is to eat foods that would "go off" or spoil in a few days. Vegetables and fruit are the first choice of course - if it was good enough for Adam and Eve it must be good for us too. Also remember that "brown" foods are better than "white", for instance, brown rice, brown bread, brown flour and brown macaroni are all better than their white, processed partners. If food has been processed to store better on the supermarket shelves, that might be very good for the shop, but it is not good for the human body.

We feed our bodies on food that has been processed, preserved with chemicals, irradiated, genetically altered, and artificially coloured, flavoured and sweetened. It is now common-place for a drink to be advertised as special because it contains real orange juice, because most orange drinks are not real.

We are counselled in the Word of Wisdom to eat the fruit of the vine. A lot of people think that refers to grapes and do not think any further about other plants that grow on a vine. These include tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, squash, pumpkins, and especially, beans. Even peanuts grow on the surface of the ground on a vine-like plant.

Having dealt with matters of the bowel, we return to the uterus, or womb. The uterus is about the size and shape of a pear - maybe that's why most of us are pear-shaped! It is situated low down in the tummy above the vagina, which is about 10 cm. (4 inches) long. At the top of the uterus are the Fallopian tubes that branch out, one on each side, towards the ovaries. The ovaries produce the hormones that trigger off the periods. The ovaries also release an egg each month.

During the first 2 weeks of the monthly cycle the ovaries produce more and more oestrogen which builds up the lining of the uterus ready to receive the egg if it is fertilised. The ovaries also produce very tiny amounts of testosterone which is a male hormone, but only a fraction of the amount produced by a man. This increases at the time of ovulation and gives women a greater desire for sex - which is a good time to have it if you are hoping to have a baby!

An interesting fact given to us through statistics is that more babies are born in Springtime than any other time of year. The pineal gland in the brain produces melatonin, which affects our feeling of energy and well-being. It does this at night in direct response to the amount of sunlight experienced in the preceeding few hours.

For example, if it has been a sunny day - that night, lots of melatonin - next day an energetic, positive person.

A dull winter day - that night, very little melatonin - next day a tired, depressed, lethargic person.

It helps to go out for a walk in winter, when there is not much sun around, as not only will it help the body absorb whatever sunlight there is, but the blood circulation will be revved up making the body warmer. Also, as for any depressed person, whatever the cause, going for a walk and having a change of scenery will help to give a slightly more positive outlook.

A deficiency of melatonin shows up as tiredness and depression, and before the period it causes a craving to eat. It produces S.A.D. which is Seasonal Affective Disorder, and also the tiredness of jet lag. Vitamin B foods can help to reduce this tiredness.

Melatonin also affects the production of oestrogen and helps to stabilise it around the time of ovulation. Hence, in mid-summer when there is plenty of sunshine to increase the production of melatonin, the woman has a greater sense of well-being and a stronger desire for sex. Therefore, 9 months later, in Springtime, there are more babies born, which is the best time, to have the summer months to establish life and growth before the cold months of winter come around again.

Around the time of ovulation another hormone from the ovaries increases. This is progesterone which keeps the lining of the uterus thick, ready to accept the egg if it is fertilised. Progesterone is completely different from progestogen, and even some doctors have difficulty recognising this. When a woman is treated with synthetic progestogens, as when taking oral contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy, her body becomes confused and produces less natural progesterone. This can cause salt build-up, fluid retention with a bloated feeling and irritability, and other symptoms of P.M.S.

Oral contraceptives contain low doses of synthetic oestrogen and progestagen, and they work by giving a false message to the body to convince it that ovulation has already happened so the egg is flushed out of the body and does not get a chance to grow.

Petrochemical products can mimic oestrogens in our bodies. These include petrol, plastics, pesticides, fertilisers, paints and adhesives. Xeno-oestrogens are oestrogen-like substances absorbed in the body from many plastics. A doctor doing laboratory research discovered that the oestrogen substances she was cultivating grew quicker on plastic dishes than on the glass dishes she had previously used. We use plastic jars to store foods in the fridge, and foods at home and in the supermarket are wrapped in plastic to keep it fresh.

The vitamin B group help the body to process the excess oestrogens out of the body. Coffee, alcohol and tobacco smoke quickly use up Vitamin B in the body, and unfortunately, even if we stay away from these substances, air pollution will still take its toll, so we need to eat more foods containing the Vitamin B group. It is important to remember that the B vitamins are a group and we should not take extra of one of them, and not the others, otherwise they get out of balance.

When oestrogen is not balanced by progesterone it can produce weight gain, headaches, fatigue, irritability and loss of interest in sex, all of which are recognised as symptoms before the period of P.M.S. Natural progesterone is slowly becoming more available in our health shops, so keep asking for it, and it will be ordered for you.

As just mentioned, there are many causes for P.M.S. which is Premenstrual Syndrome. Some ways to ease it are getting out in the daylight for 1/2 hour each day, avoiding plastics where possible, increasing the intake of fresh, unprocessed, foods, especially the Vitamin B group, and using natural progesterone cream. Things to avoid are coffee, alcohol and tobacco smoke, and it is important to take a clear look at your way of life, and work out where you can take time for yourself, to replenish your energy reserves, instead of draining yourself by continually giving to others. On an airplane, in an emergency, the oxygen masks are released automatically and the crew are trained to put them on and look after themselves first, before they attempt to help anyone else. The human heart has blood sent to it from the lungs full of oxygen, ready to be sent around the body. However, before it sends that fresh blood anywhere else, it sends it to its own muscles first. You must look after yourself first, and build up your own spirit, before you can look after other people. Love thy neighbour - as thyself!

About a third of women in their twenties in New Zealand who use contraceptives take The Pill, but by the time they reach their late thirties only one in 20 take it. Many women in their late thirties or early forties who have not had babies decide they want them, but this does not happen as easily as they hoped. After a year of lack of success in becoming pregnant a fertility specialist might prescribe synthetic pituitary hormones, similar to those produced by the pituitary gland in the base of the brain. It is hoped this will stimulate egg growth and ovulation, however it can cause several eggs to be released at once which is why we now hear of women giving birth to 5, 6, and even 7 babies.

In each ovary there are about 40,000 eggs, each one about the size of a full-stop on a written page. Usually only one is released each month from alternate ovaries. Identical twins come from one fertilised egg that splits in half as it implants in the uterus, and non-identical twins come from two different eggs, usually one from each ovary. Triplets and more happen in the same way.

As soon as the egg is released from the ovary a sticky substance is emitted from the fallopian tube to envelope it and draw it down into the fallopian tube. The whole journey from the ovary to the uterus takes about 3 days, but the length of time the egg is in the right place to be fertilised and implanted in the uterus is only about 24 hours. As there are only about 30 days in the whole year when an egg can be fertilised, and 5 out of 6 embryos do not survive the first 8 weeks in the uterus, we begin to realise that every baby is a miracle.

The instant a sperm reaches the egg and penetrates the outer layer to fertilise it, its chemical structure changes and it can no longer be fertilised by any other sperm . Once the egg has been fertilised it begins to divide into first 2 cells, then 4 cells, then 8 and so on, each with its own D.N.A.and it is called an embryo. Within a week the sex can be determined. D.N.A. (Deoxy-ribonucleic acid) is a blue-print copy of what the entire body will be like including its sex, colour of eyes, whether the hair is straight or curly, or the person will be tall or short etc. Around the time the woman misses her first period, the heart is forming in the embryo and a week later the heart is beating. Only 6 weeks after conception the spine is visible and the buds of arms are formed, and the brain is co-ordinating the movement of muscles and organs. At 9 weeks the head looks like a head instead of part of the spine, and the beginnings of eyes are clearly visible. The stomach has started producing gastric juices, the hands have fingers, the liver is making blood cells and the kidneys are functioning. Even more amazing is that all the eggs a woman has in her ovaries as an adult are laid down at this stage of the embryo. All this is only 6 weeks after the woman has missed her period.

A quarter of a million nerve cells a minute are formed in the embryo's first 12 weeks of life. There are 100 thousand million cells in the brain. The body makes too many cells rather than too little, then the surplus are killed off later. All the cells know where they are meant to be situated, so there are not eye cells growing on the arms, etc. For us to visualise what a miracle this is, it would be like someone who has never been to America before, and never driven before, driving from one side of America to the other, without a map - and finding the right house.

At 12 weeks it is not called an embryo any longer, but a foetus, and looks just like a miniature baby, about 12cm. long, but curled up. It has finished the creation of every major part of its body and weighs about 14g. which is about the weight of a 50 cent piece. The foetus is attached at its umbilicus by a cord, about a metre long, to the placenta which is truly the most efficient life-support system in that it is a kidney dialysis, a heart-lung machine and an artificial liver, all rolled into one.

During pregnancy the uterus grows to 20 times its normal size and its blood supply increases to 3 times its usual amount, which is why the mother feels much hotter than usual. The mother's spine curves backwards, and the major organs of the body, like the stomach, liver, lungs and intestines, all get pushed upwards to make room for the uterus and baby. The ligaments holding the bones of the hips and lower back together soften so that the whole pelvic bone structure is much more pliable for the birth passage of the baby.

At birth the baby's brain is not yet fully developed, and will not be for another year, but by then the baby would be much too big to be born. A million babies are born in the world every day, and to their parents theirs is the most beautiful.

About 2 months after birth the baby's body has its full number of cells, somewhere around 70 trillion (70,000,000,000,000) with each cell containing its own blue-print of the entire body. From this time on the body has no need to create extra cells, only to replace them as they are worn out and as the child grows. Every 4 weeks or so, throughout life, the entire outer layer of the skin is replaced with new cells, and we shed about 450gm. of dead skin cells every year. About every 2 months almost every cell in the heart muscle is rebuilt, and within a one-year period the cells of our bone structure are replaced. In fact one year from now almost every cell in your body will have been replaced with a new cell, and you can truly say you are a new person.

Most mothers know they should do exercises to strengthen muscles that have been stretched during the pregnancy, but it is difficult to find the time and energy to do this when your work-load has suddenly doubled, and you automatically have to do night-duty as well. So here are a few exercises that can be done even while sitting in a chair - now that's my kind of exercise!

1. Practise pelvic floor exercises. The pelvic floor is the part of you that the baby came out of. When you go to the toilet try stopping and starting so you get the feel of the different sets of muscles underneath you, and whether they affect the urethra, the vagina or the anal opening of the bowel. You can practise "holding" these muscles at any time and no-one will ever know you are doing it! When these pelvic-floor muscles have become stretched and loose, especially as the years go by, they allow urine to be passed when sneezing, coughing or laughing. But don't give up laughing because of this. It is a proven fact that laughing a lot can make you look about 5 years younger! Exercises to strengthen these muscles must be done several times a day, every day, for about 3 weeks before you will notice a difference. There is no quick-fix!
2. Link your hands behind your back and pull your shoulders back, straightening your head and neck.
3. Pull in your tummy as if trying to get it to touch the back of the chair.

After the birth of the baby the mother's body has an incredible adjustment to make to "going solo" again and all the changes that took up to 9 months now have to change back again. It will take a further 9 months for her body to lose its stores of fat and return to its pre-pregnancy state. If the mother breast-feeds for at least 9 months to a year those stores of fat will be used up more effectively, and one of the reasons for weight gain after having babies is that many mothers have stopped breast-feeding before that 9 months.

Breast-feeding is an art, a craft to be learned, not something every mother necessarily knows how to do the minute she picks up her new-born baby. Great emotional support is needed for the new mother as she copes with the changes in her hormones, the exhaustion of the birth, and the weight of responsibility for a new little person.

Breast milk contains all the nutrients needed by a baby until the age of about 9 months when it will have used up the store of iron held in its body. At that time the baby is able to suck and chew iron-containing foods and physically does not need so much breast-milk. However there is a strong emotional need in both mother and baby to continue breast-feeding for as long as it is comfortable for both of them.

Milk is made in glands in the top part of the breast and chest, and carried to the nipple along channels called ducts. As soon as the baby takes milk from the breast a signal is sent to the brain to stimulate the glands to produce more milk. The more the baby drinks, the more milk is produced next time. When the mother becomes over-tired, discouraged, or has a sleepy baby who does not feed very often, the milk production is reduced. For the mother to produce more milk she needs rest, help in the home, and encouragement from those around her.

The percentage of protein in breast milk is only 5% which is an interesting indication that at the time of the fastest growth in life a person does not need more than 5% protein. It used to be thought we needed 100g. protein each day, but it is now thought we need only about 20g. protein a day.

Many people think they have to eat high levels of protein to give them strength or stamina. While it is true that we need protein to re-build blood cells, replace enzymes, produce anti-bodies, and fulfill certain other specific tasks, many studies have found that protein use is no higher during exercise than under resting conditions. The strongest animal on earth, for its size, is the silver-back gorilla, which is 3 times the size of man, but has 30 times our strength. Yet these gorillas eat nothing but fruit and bamboo leaves.

To give an indication of the protein levels of some foods:

• 100g. lean beef would give about 20g. protein
• an egg would give about 6g. protein
• 100g. (1\2 cup) cooked soyabeans - about 20g. protein
• 30g. cheese would give about 7g. protein
• 30g. (3\4 cup) brown rice would give about 4g. protein
• 1 medium potato would give about 3g. protein
• 100g. of most vegetables would give about 2g. protein

So we can see that it is not difficult to obtain our 20g. protein every day, in fact the difficulty in our way of life is that we can easily become overloaded with protein. For so many years New Zealand has been the land flowing with milk and roast mutton that we have come to think of our life-style as right.

For women approaching the third M of a woman's life - Menopause - it is particularly important to find out about how much protein is enough, and how much is an over-load, because the over-load has to be dealt with somewhere in the body, it doesn't just politely disappear.

Advertisements for milk and calcium products tell us that around the menopause years we need more calcium to prevent us having brittle and broken bones. However, eating high amounts of animal protein can cause us to lose more calcium than usual in the urine. Also sodium, in salt, needs potassium to balance it, and calcium needs magnesium. When these minerals are out of balance, such as when a lot of salt or protein is eaten, then the body flushes calcium out in the urine while trying to re-establish a balance.We may think we do not eat a lot of salt but it is in most processed foods and difficult to avoid.

When dealing with the Menopause the most well-known problems include osteoporosis, weight gain and hot flushes with loss of sleep and irritability. Other problems that are less often discussed are loss of confidence, dry, itchy skin and sexual discomfort. With the ovaries making less oestrogen the vaginal walls become thinner, drier, and more fragile making sex very painful. It's a shame that at a time when a woman is free of the fear that many women have of another pregnancy, that she is not able to enjoy her sex life. It is difficult to imagine how menopausal women coped with sex before the invention of K.Y. jelly. Now you can buy it in the supermarket along with the vegetables and bread, and nobody even notices any more. Women can be given so much help by their doctors, homeopaths, pharmacists and other health advisers, to make life during the menopause more comfortable that it is a shame some women feel too embarrassed to ask about it.

About half of all women have a loss of interest in sex, and this does not affect women only at menopause, but at any age. There are many reasons for this loss of desire.

1. Tiredness. It is difficult to cope all day with children and housework, and maybe an outside job, and then get up at night to a sick child, and at the same time expect to feel romantic.
2. Emotional. Depression, stress and anxiety may be able to be dealt with during the day, but they surface at night, and switch off sexual feeling.
3. Abuse. Whether past or present, sexual abuse will change the woman's idea of her body image and make her feel less than desirable.
4. Relationship. If the woman does not feel she has a friendship with the man in her life, she will have difficulty in feeling emotionally attached to him, or to their romantic life.
5. Medications. Various prescription drugs, such as the birth control pill, can lower sexual feeling. Obviously, diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and impending operations, such as hysterectomy and breast surgery, will have a major effect on how a woman feels.
6. Pain. If sex has been painful in the past, the thought will still be there.
7. Men. If the man has difficulty in having an errection the woman may at first be frustrated, but may actually welcome it as it means she does not have to try and have sex any more.

Some women find difficulty in discussing their physical symptoms with their doctor because "he is a man and won't understand." That is not so. You don't have to put your hand on a hot stove to experience it before you can know that it hurts. Doctors are sypathetic and knowledgeable about the menopause whether they are men or women, and most male doctors have a wife or mother who has gone through the menopause.

Homeopathy can give a whole new outlook on the management of many of the distressing symptoms of menopause through the use of herbal and other types of natural medication. It is well worth finding a homeopath that you feel comfortable with as herbal medication needs to be specifically tailored to the individual needs of each person.

Many women put up with painful and distressing symptoms for years, and one of those is heavy periods.At the time of menopause the periods are often very irregular, and can be light, or very heavy. Heavy periods, meaning you have to wear double pads, may be caused by fibroids. These are lumps which are usually not cancerous, but benign. However, they cause the lining of the uterus to become a lot thicker in an effort to try and shake them off, and then at the next period all that extra lining comes away as heavy blood loss, causing pain and anaemia. Sometimes these fibroids block the passage of the blood flow and the blood forms into clots while it is waiting to get out. Help from a health professional is always needed as the situation is not going to get any better all by itself.

All women need to go to their family doctor for a cervical smear every 3 years from age 30 to 70 years. An instrument is inserted into the vagina, to hold it open, enabling the doctor to wipe a special type of spatula across the cervix, at the top of the vagina, collecting a few skin cells. These are then smeared on to a glass slide which is examined under a microscope in the laboratory, to check if there are any cancer cells. There is about a 10% margin of error in checking these smear cells, no matter who ckecks them, but by having a smear taken every 3 years, unusual cells will be noticed before they change to cancer.

No-one likes to think of unpleasant words like cancer, fibroids and osteoporosis, and it would be unfair and unwise for us to paint a picture of menopause as a terrible time. It is rightly called The Change of Life, and is the time when a woman no longer has the ability to have babies. Along with that comes the fact that she will no longer have periods, and after 30 years of that, it's a relief in anybody's language. A woman said recently that if a man were to go on bleeding for one week out of every four, for 30 years, he'd spend most of his life at the nearest hospital in A. & E.!

At menopause the hormone testosterone increases very slightly, and women become more outspoken about injustices they see, and they get on and do more about life. Try and imagine that at menopause your body is being re-wired and see your hot flushes as "power surges". You can feed all your negative thoughts and actions into these "power surges" and burn them up and get rid of them, leaving you to get on with your life as you want to. Some of the most important things done in the world by women, have been done after they went through the menopause.

Here are some more M's for us to look forward to -

Motivated Mothers Move Mountains after Menopause!

Three main factors influencing a woman's health at any stage of her life, but particularly around menopause, are - high self-esteem, good social support from family and friends, and how healthy she thinks she is.

Menopause brings back the problems we didn't deal with in the teenage years. We must learn to turn our wounds of the past into wisdom for the future, and ask ourselves how we can learn to forgive and use the bad experiences of our lives to help ourselves and other people. Caring for yourself is not selfishness but self-preservation. You must nurture yourself. Pay attention to the things that bring you joy. That might be having a bubblebath, reading a magazine, watching a funny video, or eating lunch outdoors. It does not cost a lot of money to nurture yourself or someone else, it just needs thinking about, and putting that thought into action. Find things to laugh about. Teach your children as they grow up that it is important to laugh, and to look for a marriage partner that they can laugh with. Life is difficult enough without a sense of humour. One of the best gifts you can give your family is a happy life.

At the Menopause, the same as just before the period, we have a strong need to be appreciated. We also have a strong need to be creative. Be gentle with yourself. Ask for what you need, and say "no" to what you don't want. Life may have been rushing along for years, like the waves surging on to the beach. You are caught in the surf with hardly time to catch your breath before the next wave comes rushing in upon you. There was no time in the past to stop and think, and sort things out. Now it is mid-life. The tide has gone out and you can see all sorts of things it has left behind, and you can no longer pretend they are not there. Talk to other people and tell them your worries. If you don't feel valued you will keep working hard to prove you are of worth, and that can take years off your life. If you only stay in a job you don't like because you're hanging on for retirement - you'll die before you get to it.

We can't do anything about the effects of gravity. The skin on our faces will sag. Other parts of our body will sag too, in fact the top half of our body seems intent on trying to drop down around our waist, and our waist wants to disappear altogether. Choose underwear that supports and lifts your body back where you want it to be. Make or buy clothes that although comfortable, are smart and in colours that make you happy to wear them. Put a hair colour through your hair. Take a lesson from Kiri Te Kanawa who said, "So I'm over 50. So my hair's going grey. So I use a hair colour. So what!"

Skin care is important at all ages. New Zealand has a higher death rate from skin cancer than any other country in the world. We need to stay out of the sun as much as possible, cover up when we have to be out-doors,and use sunscreen when it's not practical to cover up.

Moisturisers need to be used all over the body - don't use handcream only on your hands, your whole body needs replenishing. Your skin is the largest organ of your body. See how your feet love it when you put handcream on them! Use a moisturiser on your face and neck from your mid twenties, night and morning without fail, every day. Drink plenty of water each day to put the vitality back into your skin.

Something else that women need to become knowledgeable about is breast cancer. Mammograms are X-rays of the breasts, which are done about every 2 years for women over the age of 50. Some hospitals have a special programme for women and once you are registered on this you are sent an appointment automatically every 2 years, otherwise your family doctor can refer you for one. Breast cancer can strike at any age, even in your twenties.

However, cancer experts maintain that the most reliable way of detecting cancer of the breast in the very early stages is by the woman examining her own breasts every month. The best time is several days after the period has finished, as many women have uncomfortable breasts before the period.

1. Find some private place where you can take off your clothes and look in the mirror without being self-conscious. Look at your breasts, do they look different, apart from the fact that most people usually have one breast slightly larger than the other.
2. Lean forward a little - again do the breasts look different from each other, or different from the last time you examined them?
3. Put your hands behind your head and push your elbows forward, and look at your breasts. Do they look different - e.g. any dimpling or shadows?
4. Put one hand behind your head. With 3 fingers knead the breast around the nipple, working your way out towards the under-arm. Don't leave out the under-arm area as that is where the lymph ducts are and cancer can grow there. Then change over and do the other side.
5. Press the nipple to see if there is a blood-stained or brownish discharge. Then do the other side.

The lump you are feeling for may be like feeling a frozen pea, or it may be a flatter lump. If you find any kind of lump, go to your doctor who will then examine it and either send you to the hospital, or have you back in a month to check it and compare any change.

Our body is made up of 70,000,000,000,000 cells, and most of the time they know where to go and what to do. Cancer is a group of cells that are multiplying out of control. Breast cancer is one of the major killers of women in this country. Experts have discovered overwhelming evidence that what we eat is crucial in helping to reduce the risk of cancer. No one particular food will stop or resist cancer, but eating the right foods is like putting on your armour to protect yourself.

We hear advertisements advising us to eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day, but in actual fact we should really try to eat 9 different vegetables and fruits a day, many of them raw, especially apples, pears, bananas, oranges, onions, garlic, kumara, beans, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. The reason for this is that vegetables and fruit have an alkaline effect on the blood, whereas meat produces an acid effect. Research has now found that cancer cells cannot survive in an alkaline environment.

Eat lentils, just like Daniel in the Bible whose good health was noticed by those around him. Linseed can be ground and put into many foods, pumpkin seeds supply good sources of zinc, and sunflower seed are important in our daily food too. Bean sprouts are excellent because there is a massive release of enzymes, vitamins and minerals at the time the seed starts to sprout.

A simple rule that applies to many foods is - If it's white, don't eat it. That means, no white rice, white flour or white bread. Also remember that sugar, salt, and the fat on meat are all white. Even with potatoes, kumara are preferred rather than ordinary potatoes. At last the world is recognising what many people knew all along - Brown is Beautiful!

Many Asian and Mediterranean women have less cancer and less menopausal problems and this seems to be strongly related to the food they eat. Olive oil is used in cooking instead of butter and margarine, and in Asia soya foods are eaten a great deal more than here. It has now been found that soya foods have nutrients that block receptors in the breast that allow cancer to grow in the ducts of the breast. We are informed that most soya beans imported into this country have been genetically modified and we must each make up our own minds about the foods we choose to eat. We must also recognise that for many years most of the food we eat has been treated with chemicals, the air we breathe is full of chemicals and the water we drink is full of chemicals, so it is difficult to get away from it all.

It is not difficult to add soya products such as soya milk, soyabeans and T.V.P. (textured vegetable protein to our way of eating if we do it gradually, and if we want to be more healthy. We can gain more information from reading books and attending cooking classes where we will be shown the best way of doing this. For instance, when soaking soyabeans it is important to throw away the soaking water as it contains poisons that have built up while the beans have been soaking. Cover the beans with a fresh lot of water and after bringing it to the boil, discard that too as it contains elements that can give some people wind. Use a third lot of water to boil the beans, cooking them until they are soft enough to squash in the mouth with the tongue. A lovely desert can be made by mixing soft tofu with mashed banana and serving it over fresh fruit salad.

Rolled oats, beans, pasta, potatoes and brown rice are some of the slow-release carbohydrate foods. They slow down the release of Insulin from the pancreas. When the body has to keep producing sudden amounts of Insulin to deal with sugary foods that are eaten, it puts a strain on the pancreas and can lead to Diabetes. Diabetes is rapidly increasing in this country and a high Insulin level increases the risk of cancer.

Most of us have heard of cholesterol, and think of it as something bad, but in fact our body needs it, so it makes it. We do not need to add to it. Cholesterol is produced in the liver and is found in man and all animals, but not in any plants, so we can eat as much plant food as we like and not take in any cholesterol. When we eat any animal products such as meat, milk and other dairy foods, we cannot avoid cholesterol.

Cholesterol moves around the body attached to lipoproteins. High density lipoproteins (H.D.L.) collect cholesterol and take it to the liver to be removed from the body - as long as the liver is working all right and not already over-loaded, such as when diseased, as with cyrrhosis.

Low density lipoproteins (L.D.L.) also collect cholesterol but then deposit it on the walls of the arteries. They lurk there, clogging up the arteries so blood cannot flow freely through the blood system. This is what is called atherosclerosis, or furring of the arteries. It is a bit like the furring in a kettle. Eventually it causes people a lot of pain in their legs, and can lead to a small piece of that blockage breaking off and traveling to the heart or brain, causing a heart attack or a stroke.

The liver produces more cholesterol in overweight people, and after fatty food has been eaten. For every 1 kg. of extra weight, the body has to make an extra 3 km. of blood vessels for the blood to be pumped through. About 1 in 3 people in New Zealand die from coronary heart disease, mostly by heart attack.

Soluble fibre binds with cholesterol in the lower bowel and passes it out of the body. So good foods to eat are barley, oats, brown rice, which still has the outer layer of fibre on it, fruits and legumes, such as peas, beans and lentils.

We hear a lot about Free Radicals and wonder what they are all about. They are not a political party or a new religion! Free radicals are chemicals formed in the body from oxygen, as part of its metabolism and defence against bacteria. We can see the effects of this when an apple is cut in half and goes brown. The effect of the air - oxygen - causes some of the apple cells to die and go brown. This is a natural occurence in the cycle of life. Problems arise when the body produces too many free radicals and these chemicals then attack and even kill cells. Free radicals in the body can get out of control especially as they are increased by excessive sunlight, tobacco smoke, Fast foods and air pollution. Anti-oxidants can destroy free radicals and they are found in fruits and vegetables, especially those that are orange and red, for example, oranges, tomatoes, apricots, peaches, carrots, sweetcorn, pumpkin and berries.

The benefits of increasing our intake of anti-oxidants from these type of foods are enormous. They include, improved circulation, reduction of varicose veins and the inflammation of arthritis, and Diabetic eye diseases, and they also help our skin look younger! They are also thought to improve a slowed-down memory, and may help people with Alzheimer's and Attention Deficit Disorder.

Sometimes we think, "I'd like to be healthier," or "I'd like to lose weight," but we don't know how to go about it. The first thing to do is to look at what is going in your mouth. Food comes from 3 main sources -

• God made it,
• You made it,
• A factory made it.

If God made it, its fine. If you made it, look at what you put in it. If a factory made it, read the label. You are looking for 3 things in particular -

• How much fat is in it?
• How much sugar is in it?
• How much salt is in it?

Look at the order of the list of ingredients, as they have to be written in order of what is the most in it.

Be aware that some foods we think of as healthy often have a lot of sugar in them. A small tub of yoghurt usually has 3 heaped teaspoons of sugar in it. A milkshake may well have 9 teaspoons of sugar in it. A can of fizzy drink has about 7 teaspoons of sugar in it, so when you drink it your body craves water to dilute all that sugar, so you feel thirsty and drink more fizzy drink. So the drink manufacturers are happy - but your body isn't! A lot of food producers have reduced the amount of salt used, and we can buy Light cottage cheese or Light cream cheese, with greatly reduced amounts of fat, but nothing much has been done to reduce the sugar level. Too much sugar will reduce the effectiveness of the white blood cells that deal with infection, which means you are more likely to go down with an illness.

The reason why diets do not work, and people end up fatter than before is that first of all you lose water, then you lose muscle, and the body holds on to the fat as a reserve, in case of times of famine and starvation. You think at first you are losing weight, but you are really losing water and muscle, so you gradually become weaker and weaker. Your internal machinery slows down and the body uses up the food very slowly. You feel low in energy and get discouraged. You give up dieting and comfort yourself with fatty foods, which the body naturally craves in times of stress, but can only process very slowly as it it now working only slowly - so you put on weight and end up heavier than when you started. Multiply this scenario by each time you have a baby and you will see why many women are so depressed.

So we can learn some very important things from all this -

• Don't go on a diet.
• Don't try and lose weight.

Instead of concentrating on losing weight, try instead to become fit.

• I can change "F A T" to "F I T"

and it is not just the letter "I" but the person "I" that must make the changes.

To do this effectively you need a team to work with you, especially to keep you encouraged when you feel like giving up. You could include on your team your Creator - after all, He made you, so He can mend you! Also seek advice from your family doctor and ask to be referred to a dietician at your local hospital. If this means travelling a long way, then ask if a nurse at the doctor's surgery can over-see your progress, as you need someone outside your everyday circle of people to check on you. Then, of course, you need the encouragement of your family and friends, but remember they have got used to you the way you are and may not see why you want to change.

Recognise that you might sabotage your own weight loss as you are nervous in case you can't keep it up, or cope with the change, or cope with people's reaction to the "new" you. Some people are critical or jealous, and some people stare at your new body shape, and you may be insecure about this as it new to you.

When things go wrong in our lives, or when we look at the trouble the world is in, we say, "Someone should do something about this." We must remember, "Someone can't do everything, but everyone can do something." It's up to us to do what we can. We might think we can't do much, but we can each do something. Snowflakes are one of the smallest things you can think of, but look what they can become when they all stick together.

We all have different types of personality and some people prefer to exercise in a group, while others work better on their own or with a personal trainer. Some people like charts to tick their progress, and like stickers to reward themselves, while others will not exercise unless they know exactly why they are doing it, and can see a result or benefit from it, such as after a heart attack.

There is an old saying about eating food, which says, "First on the lips, and then on the hips." In reality fat does not start on your hips - it starts in your head. It starts with all the thoughts that go round and round inside our heads, thoughts of fear, anger, sadness, loneliness, disappointment, insecurity, discouragement, and not feeling valued. Depression slows down the body's machinery that uses food and causes us to put on weight.

We turn to food, especially fat-containing food, for comfort and to blot out those thoughts and feelings. Emotionally we crawl away into our own dark little world and cover ourselves with a blanket of depression. We hide behind a blanket of loneliness. We hide behind a blanket of fat. We hide behind so many blankets we lose sight of who we really are. Many people hide - we are not very different from anyone else, but we need courage to admit it.

Discouragement will come to us in many forms - in whatever way is applicable to us individually. Do not claim negative behaviour as being your own. For instance do not say - my anger, my overweight, my sugar addiction, my alcoholism, my drug addiction, my depression, my blaming behaviour. These are all methods the Adversary uses to discourage people. Recognise who is behind it and do something positive about it.

I trained as a nurse in a London hospital 35 years ago, and in all that time since I have looked after people with all kinds of problems. What I have learned is that we all have difficulties of one kind or another. Your trial is different from the next person's. You don't want it - but would you want theirs?

Would you prefer to be the mother who lost 2 of her children and her home in a fire?

Or the mother who had to leave the family home with her 2 young sons because her husband preferred a homosexual way of life?

The mother whose I.H.C. son screamed almost all day and often at night? One day I massaged her shoulders and she went off to sleep sitting upright in the chair while I did it as she was so exhausted.

The mother whose 2 children have an incurable disease? She watched the first one die aged 5 years and then watched the next one get worse, knowing he would probably die soon, and she could not have more children without them probably inheriting the same disease. At the same time she had to cope with the knowledge of her husband having an affair with another woman.

The mother of a little girl who could not be in daylight as it made her scream with pain in her head? So they lived with all the curtains drawn and could not go out together. The husband gave up his job to relieve his wife, but they could only ever go out separately as someone had to be at home with the little girl in the darkened room. The whole family lived in semi-darkness day after day for 7 years.

The mother of 2 little girls, one of whom had cerebral palsy and needed everything done for her, including special exercises several times a day? The mother needed a lot of help, but couldn't get it from her husband because, although he loved his family he gave way to temptation in his job in a Bank. An old lady asked him to invest her life savings for her, and he gambled away nearly $100,000 and went to prison. So that mother had to visit and support her husband, who she loved, as well as care for the children.

These are all people I have known in my time as a nurse, but there are also the people we see on the T.V. screen - real-life people, not films. The mother in Africa holding her child who is skin and bone as it starves to death in her arms - the endless lines of refugees fleeing from war.

If we all sat round in a circle and threw our troubles into the middle, when we saw what some other people are coping with - we might want to grab ours back before we got something worse.

As a nurse, it is my job to check that x-rays and blood results and other necessary information are all in the patient's notes when they are examined by their doctor. If that information is not there it is up to me to find it because a proper diagnosis cannot be made without it, and the patient will not be given the right treatment. However it is not my fault that the x-ray people did not send the x-rays to us, or the blood report is still at the other side of the hospital. I am not to blame but I am responsible for putting it right as much as I can.

You are not to blame for what you did not know in the past - about your health, child abuse, up-bringing, education, and choices you made. However, as an adult you are responsible for making a change for the better. You must continually search until you find the answers, and when you know what to do, then do it, and extend your knowledge to others. You have to heal yourself before you can be happy with someone else. You don't have to know what to do - you have to do what you know. Then as you take that step forward, you will see what comes next.

So often, when we feel depressed, we sit hunched over, staring into space, going over and over in our minds all the things that are making us unhappy. If you want to feel better, it is important to get up and do something instead of sitting around feeling depressed. By all means go to a doctor for treatment, but there are some other simple things that you can do that will help. Go for a walk and have a change of scenery. Take up evening classes. Give some help to someone who needs it. Do something that involves other people and keeps you busy. Remember, "Time on your hands means flab on the hips!"