The Science Behind Menstrual Cramps: Understanding the Role of Prostaglandins

[Kerrie]

during the birth of my second with no pain killers, i screamed, i yelled at my husband because it hurt very bad...i was lucky that i only had a 4 hour labor and delivery, but once you see your child, it makes it easy to forget.

 

[hitssquad]

Oxytocin, calorie restriction, and child delivery

Of those who had epidurals, their labor was so much longer...to the point where many of them have wound up getting oxytocin (something they'd never wish on their enemies they tell me...oxytocin injection induces far stronger contractions than normal labor, and apparently far more painful

Interestingly, oxytocin is a "feel-good" hormone released in females http://milepost1.com/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0404&L=crsociety&P=37771 :

• I've hypothesized in the past that CR lowers the male sex drive and
  raises the female one. The male drive is a no brainer as CR lowers the
  male hormone, testosterone.
  
  But, what about the female drive?
  
  http://www.13.waisays.com/clitoral.htm discusses this. The female orgasm
  results in the release of the feel good hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin is an
  appetite suppressant so regular good sex helps women stay on CR.
  
  The site discusses the effects of food on oxytocin. Due to lowering
  oxytocin the site states "Therefore, consuming wheat- and dairy products
  and consuming prepared proteinous food (prepared meat, -fish, -soy,
  -beans) can decrease your sex life, by inhibiting libido." The flip side
  of this is a diet low in wheat, dairy and prepared foods leads to more
  oxytocin. Seems a typical CR diet to me - for both sexes!
  
  Male Cronies do not miss the lovemaking boat at all. Men have oxytocin
  too and lower testosterone and a CR diet makes oxytocin more effective
  in men.

Might child delivery be easier in females practicing calorie restriction?

 

[Monique]

Interestingly, oxytocin is a "feel-good" hormone released in females http://milepost1.com/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0404&L=crsociety&P=37771 orgasm.

Infact oxytocin is a muscle contractor, explaining the involvement in orgasm, labor, and also lactation.

Apparently it is also involved in calming and positive social behaviour (if oxytocin is blocked during birth, a ewe was shown to reject her lamb [Barry Keverne, Keith Kendrick, and their colleagues at the University of Cambridge]).

That would make sense too. In fact when a mother is nursing she feels very calm and more tired, I think this is the effect of oxytocin, you wouldn't want a mom to be running around while nursing. But when injected at high concentrations during labor it acts as a strong muscle contractor, giving cramps, and no one likes those.

 

[Kerrie]

That would make sense too. In fact when a mother is nursing she feels very calm and more tired, I think this is the effect of oxytocin, you wouldn't want a mom to be running around while nursing. But when injected at high concentrations during labor it acts as a strong muscle contractor, giving cramps, and no one likes those.

that's the truth! i nursed my son for his first 6 months, and we would always end up sleeping.

 

[Moonbear]

It's far too oversimplified to refer to oxytocin as a "feel good" hormone. Oxytocin has gained a strange notoriety in the popular press as a "cuddle hormone," based on the work of Diane Witt, among others, who has demonstrated it is involved in affiliative behaviors. Oxytocin has quite a variety of functions, however, including uterine contractility during labor, maternal-infant bonding, milk let-down, etc.

Generally, food deprivation reduces sex behavior. It doesn't make much sense that oxytocin would reduce appetite either. Afterall, lactating women (or lactating females of any species) need to consume a lot of calories to maintain an adequate energy balance and to maintain lactation.

Jumping around a bit...I also wanted to address the comment about some people just having "easy" labors. I don't think any of those women who went without epidurals has an "easy" labor. Yes, some people do have especially difficult labor with or without epidural or anything else. I would never begrudge someone from getting treatment for pain when they are going through an especially difficult labor...and yes, strong contractions beginning before the cervix has even begun dilating, and severe hemorrhaging would count as an especially difficult labor. Actually, that sounds a lot like labor was for some reason premature, perhaps a placental rupture to cause so much bleeding when the baby hadn't even dropped yet? I'm surprised they didn't go ahead and do a c-section in that situation. And it is a personal decision whether someone wants to have an epidural or not. I was just relaying that with a fairly normal labor and delivery, an epidural may not be as beneficial as some think. The truly difficult thing is that by the time the contractions get strong enough to really know if you can tolerate them or not, it's usually too late to get the epidural.

 

[adrenaline]

Might child delivery be easier in females practicing calorie restriction?

I'd be careful here. If a woman's calorie intake is restricted in pregnancy, she may not get enough protein, vitamins and minerals to adequately nourish her unborn child and subsequent low infant birth rate. Low-calorie intake can result in a breakdown of stored fat in the mother, leading to the production of ketones in her blood and urine. Chronic production of ketones can result in a mentally retarded child.
There is also epidemiological data studying pregnant women during wartime/famine conditions that show children borne to that generation have higher predilection for obesity later in life...(some horomonal, chemical, genetic signal turned on due to the fact that the fetus "senses" a starvation environment and thus must adapt to the world it is entering?). (Ravelli AC, Der Meulen JH, Osmond C, et al: Obesity at the age of 50 in men and women exposed to famine prenatally. Am J Clin Nutr 70:811-816, 1999 )

That's why women who undergoe bariatric surgery must gaurantee their surgeon some contraceptive agreement since pregnancies during the post bariatric ketotic state will be very dangerous to the fetus. Then,there is quite the opposite where women pork out and gain too much weight and have gestational diabetes and all its subsequent complications for the fetus. Thus, ob-gyns are always harping on women who gain very little to gain more weight or, for those gaining too much, not to gain so much too quickly (especially those women who think pregnancy is carte blanche to eat like a pig).

 

[Evo]

I was just relaying that with a fairly normal labor and delivery, an epidural may not be as beneficial as some think. The truly difficult thing is that by the time the contractions get strong enough to really know if you can tolerate them or not, it's usually too late to get the epidural.

I would agree. Also, if the epidural doesn't have time to wear off before it's time to push it will cause problems, as Kerrie had.

 

[hitssquad]

Calorie restriction and health of mothers and babies

If a woman's calorie intake is restricted in pregnancy, she may not get enough protein, vitamins and minerals to adequately nourish her unborn child and subsequent low infant birth rate.

Protein, vitamins and minerals might be covered by the N in CRAN and CRON.

Low-calorie intake can result in a breakdown of stored fat in the mother, leading to the production of ketones in her blood and urine. Chronic production of ketones can result in a mentally retarded child.

This might suggest that a CR practicing female should wait until weight-equilibrium has been reached, before commencing insemination.

There is also epidemiological data studying pregnant women during wartime/famine conditions that show children borne to that generation have higher predilection for obesity later in life...(some horomonal, chemical, genetic signal

It is suspected that one of the anti-senescence mechanisms of calorie restriction involves the down-throttling of metabolism. Perhaps the offspring of calorie restricted mothers are well-placed for record-setting life-extension so long as they practice calorie restriction themselves.

There also might be some artificial selecting of data in these famine cases. Fetuses with high mertabolisms may have been subjected to greater rates of spontaneous abortion, shifting the resulting metabolism bell-curve downward.

 

[adrenaline]

I think advocating exercise rather than calorie restriciton, since the former has better data, would be a better form of "calorie restriction"...more like calorie expenditure. Good for mother and baby.
Depending on the study, moderate exercise leads to better weight regulation and fewer backaches and other discomforts. As well as, shorter, easier labors (on average 2 hours less of labor time) with less medical intervention (24%less C-sections and 14% less usage of forceps), higher neo-natal Apgar scores and quicker recoveries etc.
The kids may even have less weight problems. The offspring of exercising mothers measured about 10% less in skinfold and weight measures than those of the non-exercising mothers. Lean muscle mass was higher, particularly in the boys, and percentage of fat was lower. According to national statistics, the children at five years of age of the exercising mothers measured in the 50th percentile for age and skinfold thickness (in a study by a guy at Case Western named Clapp whom is a big reproductive clinical researcher) I think he also concluded that aerobic exercise performed 4 or 5 times per week beginning 6-8 weeks postpartum had no adverse effect on lactation and significantly improved the mother's cardiovascular fitness. And we all know the benefits of breast feeding. With regards to the latter, calorie restriction may once again adversly affect a woman's capability to breast feed,but I don't have the data. From experience, the heavy, sedentary patients seem to have more trouble breastfeeding postpartum perhaps due to their over reliance on calorie restriction for weight loss. It was amazing how many of the athletes or thin, excercising women , including myself, had no trouble breast feeding even with vigorous exercise ( but also hefty amount of food portions.) I was biking on a recumbant bike 60 miles a week by week 2 after delivery and reached my prepartum weight at week 7, but was still able to produce milk for ten months, despite returning to a eighty plus hour work week at the end of six weeks. I believe the only studies really looking at calorie restriction during pregnancy may be confined to the gestational diabetics at this point.

 

[karthik3k]

Poor Females :-(

Thank GOD I am a BOy

 

[Kerrie]

Poor Females :-(

Thank GOD I am a BOy

i don't think of myself as "poor me" because i am female and have gone through labor and such...as the saying goes, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger...of course not completely true literally, but going through life's little inconvienences in general can make you "tougher" depending on your perspective.

 

[Monique]

How about the 9 months preceding labor, men will never understand what it feels like to have a human being grow inside of you. Or the connection felt when nursing. (not that I know of it, mind you)

 

[Evo]

Or the first five months of vomiting & dry heaving 13 hours a day. I was losing a pound a week the first couple of months and the doctor kept threatening to put me in the hospital. I could only eat very salty baked ham with any success. I did end up gaining 22 pounds by the time I delivered though. Same thing with my second pregnancy. Also the last trimester of my pregnancies, both my ankles were so swollen I could barely bend them, so I was put on disability from work.

Geeze, I *AM* the poster child for not getting pregnant, aren't I?

A funny thing happened with my second child. When I was in labor, they picked up 2 distinct heartbeats. They told me I was having twins and that although they hadn't previously detected twins, it did happen. They actually had 2 fetal monitors on me throughout the entire labor. I was freaked out.

When I delivered the first baby, the doctor was confused because there was no second baby. Their excuse was that I was small & thin and my baby weighed 9 pounds 6 ounces, they said they must've been picking up an echo.

Adrenaline, is ths normal? I know I'm a freak, but I seem to have the weirdest things happen to me.

 

[Ebolamonk3y]

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