More than one in six couples in Australia experience delays in conceiving. While the common perception is still that women are largely at fault when there are fertility problems, medical researchers are stating unequivocally now that the male carries at least 50% of the responsibility.

In fact, since 2004, a flurry of research into male fertility has had alarm bells ringing. Researchers in the US, Europe and Australia have estimated at least a 50% drop-off in male potency since our grandparents time and have even identified Sick Sperm Syndrome, a phenomenon that has raised many questions about whether the decline in male fertility is really is getting worse and what, in our modern lifestyles could be causing it.

As early as 2005, Professor of Developmental Biology at Queensland University, Peter Koopman said when discussing declining male infertility, “A little like global warming, what we will see with fertility is that things will reach breaking point…We’re starting to see a precipitous decline in fertility and if that continues over the next 10, 20, 50 years, it will be impossible for men to reproduce naturally. And I think that is a grave situation for the human race and for our quality of life.”

Research has identified a number of reasons why this decline is happening. Firstly, with our new understandings of trans-generational genetic mutation, it is now acknowledged that a son can not only inherit his father’s bad habits, but also the damage done to his father’s reproductive capacity as a result of that bad habit. For example, if a father develops lung cancer, DNA damage in his spermatozoa also occurs. As a consequence of that DNA damage, there is a four-to-five fold increased chance his children will develop childhood cancers of various kinds.  So his children are genetically weaker that he was.

Moreover, the newer technologies being used in IVF clinics around the country to offset the dramatic reduction in the amount of sperm available due to the recent rapid decline, is to isolate a single sperm to fertilise the oocyte(woman’s egg). This effectively bypasses Nature’s brilliant plan of having the strongest sperm win the conception race, thus ensuring a stronger offspring. Technicians are doing the selecting based on their limited perceptions of the strongest sperm. Natural selection is being compromised and babies are being born genetically weaker than their fathers.

Secondly, not only is there a decline in the quantity of sperm, but also research is demonstrating that the rise in male infertility is directly linked to the increase in testicular cancer particularly amongst young men in their twenties. And one of the main reasons is environmental toxins which damage the sperm when it is in the vulnerable ’production line’ phase, increasing vulnerability to cancer but also impacting on the potency of the sperm itself.

It is during this production process within the testes of the male that genetic material is being packed into the microscopic head of the sperm. This cargo is designed for delivery at the crucial moment when it binds to the oocyte, after its victory swim up the vaginal canal of the woman.

A range of specific and non-specific environmental toxins have been cited as responsible for little or no sperm production, slow sperm or non-functional sperm, during the production line phase which means effectively that the chances of being a victor sperm are minimal at the least and impossible in most cases. 

Studies on male fertility over the past twenty years by the Queensland Fertility Group was based on the job that the study participants do, indicating the level of environmental toxicity that the workers were exposed to, according to the clinic’s scientific director Keith Harrison.

 The studies showed that white collar workers, people who work in offices and don’t get their hands too dirty, around a quarter of them have significant semen defects.  For blue collar workers such as transport workers 50% of them had semen defects. In occupations where the men actually get their hands dirty, such as builders, electricians, painters, plumbers, again there’s a 50% incidence of abnormal semen. However, of the men who really get their hands dirty; motor mechanics, fitters, turners, welders, machinery operators – there was an almost doubling in the incidence of semen defects. Similarly, farmers and graziers and people in mining industries demonstrated double the incidence of semen defects as office-based workers.

 And the problem may even be even closer to home – or getting home after a day's work! Italian scientists say traffic pollution can affect male fertility by damaging sperm. After studying 85 attendants at tollgates on Italian motorways, researchers at the University of Naples in southern Italy discovered that the men had poorer quality sperm than other young and middle-aged Italian workers in the same area.

"The sperm count did not differ significantly between our study group and the controls but, in general, the sperm of the study group was more feeble and less active, so it has a lower fertility potential," said Dr Michele de Rosa, a researcher at the university.

Levels of testosterone and other hormones in the men, who were exposed to pollutants for about six hours a day, were normal, but sperm motility, or ability to swim, was lower, which could affect its ability to fertilise a female egg.

"Our study demonstrates that continuous exposure to traffic pollutants impairs sperm quality in young and middle-aged men," Dr De Rosa said.

The researchers said the toll workers had been exposed to higher levels of nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, carbon monoxide and lead than the other men in the area. They identified nitrogen oxides and lead as the most likely causes of sperm damage.

Furthermore, the effect of chemical intoxication can impact more than production of sperm in the adult male. It can impair embryonic development. For example, although the issue of oestrogens in the environment is contentious, many chemicals can produce oestrogen effects in animals and especially on developing foetuses. Exposure to some pesticides and plastics at high enough levels can disrupt male hormones, particularly in the developing foetus. If this damage has happened to the male embryo during gestation, it will take at least 20 to 30 years for that damage to be identified, which is when the now adult male attempts to reproduce himself. Many of the hazardous chemicals cited have not been around for long enough to determine the degree of damage to the DNA. Laboratory testing on animals however, do not paint a promising picture for male fertility.

As well as environmental toxins there is also a concern about the toxic effect that pharmaceutical drugs are having on male fertility. The concern is that while pharmaceuticals may be tested rigorously for their sematic toxicity (do they make your hair fall out or cause kidney or liver poisoning?) there is little effort given to studying their reproductive toxicology. Anti-depressants have been cited as compromising the health of the sperm.

 Researchers at the Cornell Medical Centre in New York put 35 men on the anti-depressant drug Paroxetine for five weeks. After a month, changes in the DNA of the men's sperm were discovered. Dr Peter Schlegel was the lead researcher for the project.

"If you look at normal sperm counts and motility, the standard measures of fertility, you saw no changes, but if you looked at sperm DNA, the genetic material in more detail you actually found dramatic changes in almost half of the men, normal men, who are on this drug," he said.

Paroxetine is sold in Australia as Aropax. Millions of prescriptions for various anti-depressant drugs are written in Australia every year.

In the face of all this doom and gloom, is there any glimmer in the darkness? Well, it seems that if men are prepared to take the pill, there may well be.

 For research has found that a combination of anti-oxidants and vitamins can significantly increase a man's fertility.

A tablet (ah-ha – a pill for men?) containing vitamins C and E, folate, zinc, lycopene and garlic oil has been found to help protect a man's sperm from damage caused by smoking, toxins and infections.

The study conducted in Australia found that the success of pregnancy doubled in the infertile couples who took the pill.

So in real terms what does all this mean? Well, according to current figures, even the most fertile of couples having unprotected sex at the right time of the month have just a 1 in 4 chance of conceiving that month. So getting pregnant isn’t as easy as our mothers warned us. And given that the proportion of abnormally low semen volume, sperm concentration and motility, increases significantly with the age of the male, along with women’s tendency to put off wanting to have children until they are older, it seems that we are fast heading to a future where having children will be the exception rather than the norm.

However, the problem of male fertility is not easily resolved. The male biological inscription determines that men are often the last to admit that there is anything wrong with them. That is why it has taken so long to even recognize that half of the current fertility crisis rests with men, and is not just the domain of the female. Women have carried the larger part of responsibility for contraception for fifty years now at great expense to their procreative power (the pill decreases fertility) their emotional stability (studies show the pill causes depression) and their birthright to pleasure (the pill has been proven to permanently decrease libido).  Men have had no need for chemical interference in their hormonal functioning because it was always assumed that women would bear the load.

The problem of rising infertility rates in the human species must be addressed if we are to bequeath future generations the endowment they are entitled to: that of the right to evolve. In the opinion of those observing the downward spiral of our reproductive power, we may well be heading to a future where reproduction is so compromised that humanity is on the path to devolution: that is each generation is becoming less healthy than the one before.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine the axiom for health and wellbeing is moderation in all things, including moderation. Lifestyle it seems is a major contributing factor to rising rates of infertility. This is something we can all do something about. Eating well, regular exercise, resting and recuperating in balance with work and social activities, a regular detoxification program and taking supplementation if there is a deficiency are all easy ways to bring our bodies and minds into the balance required to create healthy sperm and eggs.

Balance also means bringing the opposites into a state of equilibrium. So, as men and women, gender polar opposites, come together to take responsibility for a challenge, there is where wholeness lies. Let us work together to create a healthy future for our children

 What do you think? I would love to have your opinion.

One of the workshops that Spirit of Woman conducts is called the Energy of Parenting, which covers the absolute power of positive parenting on the health and well-being of offspring. I was delighted to hear on the Health Report this week (15th March, 2010) a discussion on the power of positive parenting, including positive fathering on, not just adequate mental functioning, but high performance mental functioning.

Based on a study conducted by Felicia Huppert and others, Director of the Wellbeing Institute and Professor of Psychology, and published as 'Parental practices predict psychological well-being in mid-life:…' the discussion centred around how to attain 'positive mental health' or what can be called 'flourishing in life', rather than just 'existing with the absence of a disorder', which is the focus of most studies previously conducted.

What sets this study aside as distinct from others is not only the emphasis on optimum mental functioning, but also the fact that it is a long-term study that follows children through to late adulthood. Commenced in 1946 in England the study followed women since their birth in that year and recorded information, including memories of how their parents behaved towards them up to the age of 16.

Based on an accepted measure of the way that offspring perceive their parents, rather than any objective measure of the parents themselves, the study identified three dimensions of parenting. One dimension is warmth and care, another one is the extent to which the parent is engaged in what the child is doing, or kind of just laissez faire and doesn't seem to care very much, and the third dimension is control. So it looks at the extent to which a parent is very controlling, or over-protective, or intrusive and explores the extent of engagement, such as when they take a real interest in what their child is doing and provide guidance, but not in an authoritarian or controlling way.

The study sought six main areas in which to question the way that psychological wellbeing comes about: autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, purpose in life, positive relations with others and self acceptance.

The study found, i n the main, that the more warm and caring a parent is the better the child on all dimensions. However one unusual finding was to do with autonomy, in that when a mother was very warm and caring a daughter was less autonomous. Or putting it another way – a daughter was very autonomous, assertive and defiant if her mother was less caring in the sense of how warmly she responded to her child, when she had difficulties.

Overall, the study clearly showed that warm and caring parents need to be positive and give appropriate praise, engaged and interested in what the child is doing and to be 'authoritative' rather than authoritarian. That is, rather than being over-controlling and over-protective, they need to give the child a sense of trust, some respect and freedom while at the same time being quite clear about boundaries, about what the behaviours were acceptable and what were not.

Another unexpected finding was one that validates a notion that I have written about in my book "The Essence of Woman". It concerns the importance of positive fathering to his daughter's ability to develop confidence and autonomy as an adult. All previous literature focusses on the mother's behaviour in terms of a daughter's mental health. But this study showed beyond a doubt that the father's behaviour is actually more important than the mother's across all dimensions. So while it was important that the mother was warm and caring, and that affected many dimensions, the father, if he was warm and caring brought benefits across all dimensions. The particular difference was in terms of engagement and control – in other words confidence and autonomy. So the father who was trusting, respectful, appreciative and showed good guidance rounded off his daughter's development by giving her the set of skills necessary to navigate 'the world'. She can engage with people while at the same time maintain her own sense of  self with confidence. The Spirit of Woman blend, Daddy's Girl was designed with the importance of  the father-daughter relationship in mind. If you would like to read the full transcript on the Health Report click here.

Please leave a comment below. I would love to hear what you think.

According to two recent Radio National Health Reports (2^nd November and 9^th November) about one third of all babies being born in Australia are being delivered by Caesarean section, that is a surgical cut through the mother’s abdomen.

There are two main groups of women having caesareans: those who choose it and those who consent to it on medical advice either before or during labour.   Of those, an estimated 18% request it for no medical reason- a recent phenomenon that has increased dramatically over the last decade.    It’s not really well understood why women choose caesarean section without a medical reason. However, a study by the Cochrane Collaboration found that women’s birth choices were heavily influenced by three things:

• previous birth experience,
• their need for choice and control and
• especially their fear of a vaginal birth.

Fear of vaginal birth is very real, especially when women are at the mercy of a medical system using terminology and strategies that induce fear and lack of confidence in their bodies. And a system that promotes women to hand over the responsibility of their contraception, fertility and birthing to doctors, who in many cases are male. Because the mainstream medical system is based in the masculine principles of problem solving, and its main treatment strategies are surgery and pharmaceutical intervention, it ignores the emotional side of medical conditions.

Woman are not counseled when they express their fear of the pain of childbirth, but rather told that the solution is to remove the baby surgically – there is no ‘how come you’re feeling like that, let’s talk about it, let’s see what kinds of things can we work through to help you feel empowered and, how can we help you make an informed decision’.

Caesarean is NOT a safer option!

The truth is that caesareans involve major surgery and according to experts who have had long-term experience with the aftermath of caesareans, they are definitely not a safer option. Apart from the implications of cutting open the uterus and thereby weakening it for subsequent pregnancies, there is the problem of adhesions, which can have life-threatening effects, in the event of  second and subsequent pregnancies.

According to obstetrician David Ellwood, the gravest outcome, Caesarean Scar Pregnancy, can be life-threatening and, with the increase in CS, is on the rise. This is where the embryo actually implants in the caesarean scar and starts to develop within the scar. According to Ellwood, “the gestation sac then starts to disrupt the scar and if it develops for too long the wall of the uterus will actually rupture and the scar will break open, there will be a major haemorrhage”.

Furthermore the pregnancy cannot progress. Again says David Ellwood, the pregnancy “can progress for quite a few weeks, in fact the most dangerous types of caesarean scar pregnancies are those that have been undetected and have progressed to quite an advanced gestation.” Because the baby “couldn’t survive to full term” late-term abortion is then required which involves either an infusion of the cancer drug methotraxate that kills placental tissues, so it stops the placenta from growing and developing, or, by surgically cutting the baby out of the uterus. In the former procedure, the lethal drug has to also circulate through the mother’s system.

Another complication that arises with pregnancies following a caesarean birth can result in the placenta penetrating into the uterine wall and even through into the bladder, because it cannot attach to the scar tissue in the uterus. The inevitable outcome for this condition is that baby must be born by Caesarean Section and the uterus removed at the time of surgery, because there is no way to stop bleeding without taking out the uterus altogether.

Side Effects on Baby of Caesarean Birth

If these are the consequences of surgical birth for the mother, what is the impact on the baby? According to the report, research demonstrates that surgically delivered babies show a dramatic increase in:

• Type 1 diabetes
• Asthma
• Allergies
• Breathing problems

The report goes on to say that in many cases, intervention is often unnecessary and that the markers for foetal distress that determine a doctor recommending a caesarean during labour are often commonly over-exaggerated, causing excess caution in a process that is natural. Doctor’s fear of litigation has been cited for this extreme over-caution.

In my book, The Essence of Woman, I describe how Nature has designed stress into the birth process, balanced by the return of the vaginally-born baby to the heart-field of the mother, as she cuddles her newborn. A close, tight birth canal ensures that every inch of the baby’s skin is stimulated, cleverly planned into the birthing process to trigger the initiation of the baby’s functional systems. These are the systems that will enable baby to exist independently of the ‘mother-ship’ and include the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, nervous and elimination systems.

In a caesarean birth, these systems are not stimulated, resulting in an inefficient ‘start-up’ of the baby’s independent systems. This means that there will be functional deficiencies involving the skin, lungs, stomach, liver, bowel, heart and brain of the newborn.  The health outcomes include allergies, digestive disharmonies such as childhood and infancy diabetes (alarmingly on the rise) and colic, asthma, psychological and emotional problems such as ADD, ADHD, autism, developmental retardation and behavioural difficulties, including autism.

To understand how these health problems arise when a child is unnaturally born, read my book, The Essence of Woman, where the underlying MindBody connections are fully explained in easy readable language.

As women, we need to seriously consider how far away from our natural feminine intelligence we have strayed, when we willingly agree to have our natural processes managed for us by pharmaceutical companies that drive our mainstream medical systems for profit. In most case, this means white-washing the public into believing in the medicalisation of women’s natural reproductive processes, as with the recommended use of HRT for menopause.

Women Have Lost Confidence in Their Bodies

Many women have lost confidence in their bodies. This happens when we collaborate in the management of our reproductive processes with a medical system using toxic pharmaceutical agents that injure the body and downgrade our natural processes.

Use of the contraceptive pill has become commonplace now, and yet it has serious repercussions for the health of women. The dramatic rise in IVF (one in six couples in Australia are affected by infertility, and one in twenty babies – about 10,000 – are currently born using assisted reproductive technology) is a testimony to the fact that women’s fertility is being negatively impacted.

What’s more, the pill has been shown to reduce libido and to contribute significantly to depression.

But it doesn’t stop there. The cascade affect goes on: the more the IVF cycles, the less likely a woman is to conceive. In other words, IVF further degrades fertility and contributes to multiple births, where neither the mother nor the babies receive the optimum nutrition or energy to deliver optimum health for the newborn at birth.

Moreover, research has demonstrated that the natural gender balance is being gradually eroded with 58% of babies being born male via IVF, compared to 51% born male by natural conception.

A study, by the Key Centre for Women’s Health in Society at the University of Melbourne, found:

• IVF mothers more likely than non-IVF mothers to have a caesarean birth
• Three times more likely to seek help from an early parenting centre and
• Babies more likely to be bottle-fed by three months of age

The conclusion of the study was stated thus: “We think that experiencing infertility and the added stress of using Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) has a cumulative effect, eroding women’s confidence in themselves and in their bodies.”

IVF has a touted success rate of 15%. It is a billion dollar industry that is increasing its profits by the day. Currently, there are no quality control standards in place, nor is there any come-back for couples who pay out tens of thousands of dollars with nothing to show at the bitter end, but heartache and a stressed relationship.

Truly, it is a modern day tragedy that seems to have no end in sight.

Continuing down this path can only result in the dramatic devolution of the human race, in terms of both physical and psychological health and wellbeing of the children being born, in this denatured way.   That is unless, as women we stand up and say no, stop and enough!!

It is within our power to find other, more appropriate ways to manage our fertility that does not involve chemical castration, the expunction of natural coital conception and the slicing open of our abdomens to cut our babies from our bodies.

On Friday 21st August on Tony Eastley’s AM morning program on ABC Radio National there was a discussion on the alarming increase in juvenile diabetes in Australia. More Australian children are being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes than ever before. A new report reveals that were 900 new cases notified in 2007.

That represents a 30% increase in the number of new cases since 2000.

This means that Australia has the highest rate of Type 1 diabetes in the world – around 1000 children being diagnosed each year.

The report also looked at the increase in the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and that more Australians are developing the disease at a younger age.

Factors considered to contribute to the increase fell into three categories:

1/ A childhood virus that is part of a range of 17 viruses called enteroviruses – no concrete proof of this as a cause but considered by scientists to be a high likelihood (30% – >50%)

2/ Lack of Vitamin D – this consideration is based on studies, which correlate rates of diabetes in countries with low exposure to sunlight such as Finland and Scandinavia versus countries with high sunlight exposure. Again this is just considered to be a hypothesis – and a simplistic one at that.

3/ Bottle Feeding – early introduction of cow’s milk to the gut might inflame the gut or intestine of the baby and cause a development of an autoimmune response where the immune system attacks the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.

Personally I was alarmed and but not shocked at the statistics.

In my clinical practice, the underlying cause of so many diseases that people present with stem from a digestive weakness.

And, as we can see from the above discussion, many Australians are suffering from an inherently weak digestive system. This means that no matter how high the quality of foods that we put into our bodies, the digestive system just cannot efficiently transform the incoming food into available energy.

Diabetes is the most serious disease outcome of this weakness, along a spectrum of other disorders that effectively sabotage the joy and energy available to us in our daily lives. This gives rise to a vast range of unpleasant symptoms such as sinusitis, chronic lethargy and tiredness, menstrual difficulties, anxiety and stress symptoms, allergies, acne and so on, to mention just a few!

I believe that the scientific approach outlined above leaves out one critical factor that underpins each of the three hypotheses described. That is the crucial mother-child bond that nature built into the birthing and early infancy process, but which is being negatively impacted by unnatural birthing methods, early weaning and premature separation of mother and child through early child-care practices.

The mother-child bond is critical to the baby’s health and relies on primary contact in early infancy and toddlerhood with the mother or primary care-giver. This does not include a mother substitute who divides her time between many children under supervision.

A healthy mother-child bond assures not only the emotional and mental wellbeing of the child but also has a powerfully positive effect on triggering the integrity of the physical digestive system.

A good healthy digestive system needs a natural birth to initiate healthy functioning, and close mother-baby contact through breast-feeding to ensure that the intake of food is associated with pleasure and contentedness.

An anxious baby whose emotional and close-proximity needs are not being met becomes anxious and fearful, setting off an inflammatory process throughout the body that centres in the digestive system. This also weakens the immune system, leaving the baby open to virus proliferation in the gut, as described above.

I wonder whether the fact that Finland and Scandinavia have a more enlightened approach to early mothering, exemplified by their much more time-generous allowance for parenting leave, is not a more realistic reason why there is a lower incidence of diabetes in the young in these countries.

From a Mind-Body perspective, emotional and mental factors cannot be separated from the physical – together they interact to produce either health or disease – and even more critically in the infant, when critical body systems are being kick-started. In fact, the patterns of health or disease set during these early days, are the ones that will persist throughout a lifetime.

Let’s go deeper than the surface when looking for the patterns of a disease that is undermining the health and wellbeing of our people. Birthing practices, breast-feeding and supporting mums to stay at home with their babies for as long as possible, seem to me to be the best ways that we can prevent the rise of this life-debilitating disease that produces its insidious effect in so many areas of our daily life.

My range of flower essences has a blend which might be useful to strengthen the bond, even years later.

Breathtakingly beautiful, these flowers in the sky are so timeless and still, expressing the overwhelming magnificence of the natural world. The shapes are so familiar to us – when we behold a flower we see the same patterns repeated over and over again. . Watch and be still and sense the awesome presence – this is the Universe of which we are an intrinsic part – like flowers of life we are mirrored throughout eternity – in the Heavens above and here on Earth.

I would like you to meet Bleeding Heart, one of the new essences in my Spirit of Woman Australian Wild Flower Essence range being launched on 21st June, 2009.

Bleeding Heart
Omalanthus populifolius (Queensland Poplar)
A fast-growing, rainforest tree belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae. It has leaves shaped like hearts. As they are dying, the leaves turn red, thus the name.
The minute, cream flowers grow in dense, terminal, slender racemes.
It pops up everywhere in perfect weather conditions, but wilts and dies quickly once ‘the heat is on.’
Doctrine of Signatures
This tree is extremely fast growing as if it is in a hurry, like those who fall in and out of love at the drop of a hat, desperately seeking what they feel a relationship should be offering them.
The leaves are distinctly heart-shaped and just before they fall off the tree, they turn to a brilliant and dramatic red colour. Called Bleeding Heart, the tree’s growing habit reminds one of the drama and intensity that goes with the break-up of a relationship — painful memories, hurt and grief, making the heart bleed.
The numerous tiny flowers located on a slender raceme seem to be reaching out as if desperately seeking for acceptance and love or for a need to be met. The abundance of the flowers suggests although the affairs have been numerous, none have yet satisfied the need. The smallness of the flowers suggests that the person feels small and not worthy of notice and what is so desperately being sought is a feeling of self-worth.
Dying For Love
This is the person who seeks outside of herself for validation and a sense of being worthy. She seeks love in every encounter, and feels validated and alive if she is in the intense honeymoon period of a love affair.
Often this person is ‘dying for love,’ and can sabotage her own desire for a relationship by wearing her heart on her sleeve and actually pushing away a prospective partner with her intensity.
Or sometimes this type of person will fall in love with the unattainable — the clergy, a married man, etc. — thus subconsciously fulfilling her own prophecy of never finding the right partner.
These women romanticize love, holding it up as an ideal and are often unable to sustain a relationship when the person turns out to be ‘ordinary.’ Because of their idealized view of love, they put their lover or spouse on a pedestal, then wonder why they are disappointed when he turns out to be human and not ‘superhuman’ after all.
Many women put romantic expectations on their lover or spouse, and when he doesn’t deliver they lose their loving feeling. They may fantasize about leaving the present relationship and finding one where they will ‘truly be loved.’
A Wall Around the Heart
Some women cut themselves off from the rest of the world because they are partnered. Their unreal expectations that their partner will fulfill all of their needs — physical, social, emotional, sexual, security and friendship — puts a heavy strain on the relationship. The woman will feel sad when her partner can’t deliver and find that she is isolated and lonely.
Some women put a wall around their heart because they don’t want it to bleed again, having been hurt in the past by a love relationship gone wrong. These women experience great pain because in their deepest heart, they want to love again, but they are too scared to reach out.
Love is a Natural State
This essence attunes one to the feeling that one is worthy of experiencing true love that endures in a state of grace, delicacy and gentleness. It helps one to recognize that love can be constant and enduring and does not falter when the chips are down. It allows one to see that true love is unconditional and not focused on only what one is receiving, but also what one is giving. This love does not control, but rather lets things be the way they are based in the profound heart wisdom that everything is unfolding perfectly as it should.
Bleeding Heart helps a woman to recognize affinity as attraction to a significant other, and when that magnetism is felt, there is genuinely something there. It helps to put into perspective the notion that touching and being touched is a demonstration of the power of feeling between them and not simply an end in itself.
Love is a natural state between all living things. Love radiates throughout all existence, including human beings and the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms.
Live to Love and Love to Live
The cry of a ‘warrior of the heart’ is live to love again. When we stay open to love, we become more loving and consequently attract love to us. This is the healing energy of Bleeding Heart.
Your Healing Challenges

• For those who wear their heart on their sleeve.
• For those who pine for love.
• For those who fall in love with the unattainable.
• For those who put a wall around the heart.
• For co-dependency.
• For those who feel they can’t live without love.

Your Healing Outcomes

• Brings discernment in selecting a partner.
• Quiets the hungry heart.
• Opens the heart to true love.
• Encourages individuality within a relationship.
• Enables love of the self.
• Helps one to take a risk.
• Works on the first, second and fourth chakras.

In the Courier Mail on the 14th July 2009 there was an article titled “Epidural Epidemic– No labour pain, no bond gain”.

It reported the comments of Dr Walsh, an associate professor in midwifery at Nottingham University in Britain who stated that more women should be prepared to endure the pain of labour because anaesthetic drugs used to diminish the pain and increase the comfort of women undermine the bonding process built into a natural birth.

He described labour as a ‘rite of passage’ and a ‘purposeful and useful thing’ for women, effectively preparing them for the demands of motherhood.

What a refreshing approach -  I have expressed exactly those sentiments in my book The Essence of Woman.

My focus however, was not so much on the notion that women should endure the pain so that ‘the benefits….prepar(e) a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby’, as expressed by Dr Walsh, but rather that nature has inbuilt into the birthing process certain triggers that initiate a crucial series of actions that support best mothering ability and best baby survival capacity. In other words, birthing sets in place biological responses to ensure that mothering and early infant survival rates are optimized.

In fact, nature has cleverly designed the birthing process so that in a natural birth, biological responses chemically, hormonally and psychologically drive the mother to strive for better opportunities in life than she herself had. This is called good ‘old-fashioned’ evolution – and it is nature’s way of ensuring that each generation experiences life in a more optimum way than the generation that went before.

The means by which nature sets the evolutionary drive in place is largely through the quality of mothering. The primary strategy is known as the ‘bonding process’ a which occurs largely at birth due to a cascade of hormones that inflow into the mother’s bloodstream in response to the passage of the baby through the birth canal. The main chemicals involved are the hormones oxytocin and prolactin, which promote bonding and the desire to breast feed, and the neuro-chemical endorphin, which triggers a pleasure/bliss response.

The hormones, at their highest during labour, effectively reduce pain by increasing the mother’s responsiveness and acceptance of her baby – oxytocin not only leads to stronger contractions and therefore a lower risk of internal bleeding, but it also stimulates waves of bliss generating what can only be described as the beginnings of a passionate love affair with her baby.

Endorphins are calming and pain-relieving hormones that people produce in response to stress and pain. The level of this natural morphine-like substance may rise toward the end of pregnancy, and then rises steadily and steeply during unmedicated labors. (Most studies have found a sharp drop in endorphin levels with use of epidural or opioid pain medication.) High endorphin levels during labor and birth can produce an altered state of consciousness that helps women flow with the process, even when it is long and arduous. Despite the hard work of labor and birth, a woman with high endorphin levels can feel alert, attentive, and even euphoric as she begins to get to know and care for her baby after birth. Endorphins may play a role in strengthening the mother-infant relationship at this time. A drop in endorphin levels in the days after birth may contribute to the "blues" that many women experience at this time.

On the other hand adrenaline can also affect a birth. Adrenaline is the "fight or flight" hormone that humans produce to help ensure survival. Women who feel threatened during labor (for example by fear or severe pain) may produce high levels of adrenaline. Adrenaline can slow labor or stop it altogether. Earlier in human evolution, this disruption helped birthing women move to a place of greater safety.

Too much adrenaline can cause problems in labor and birth by:
• causing distress to the unborn baby
• causing contractions to stop, slow, or have an erratic pattern, and lengthening labor
• creating a sense of panic and increasing pain in the mother leading providers to respond to this problem with caesareans and other interventions.
A calm and trusting approach to the impending birth, feeling supported by loved ones and a strong sense of confidence that the labour will be OK, avoiding disturbances, such as unwelcome people or noise and uncomfortable procedures and stimulation of erogenous zones prior to labour ensure that sufficient oxytocin will overcome the excess production of adrenaline.

Under the influence of this hormonal cascade, Mum feels euphoric, touching and gazing at the baby in a bubble of ecstasy and love. The baby responds to the touch by relaxing and regaining a sense of deep safety following the gruelling and painful journey down the birth canal. The more the baby relaxes the more blood circulates freely to the various parts of the body, initiating and triggering the life support systems that are crucial to her post-natal existence.

As Dr Walsh so rightly states, “Emerging evidence shows that normal labour and birth prime the bonding areas of the mother’s brain more that caesarean or pain-free birth”. Furthermore, there is new hard evidence that supports his statement that natural birth prepares a woman for motherhood.

As discussed in my book The Essence of Woman, a woman’s brain is dramatically changed during the labouring process. Research demonstrates that due to the inflow of high levels of hormones, including adrenaline, a woman lays down extra neuronal circuitry that wasn’t there before the birth. These extra brain circuits equip the mother with the capacity for coping with the new demands that having an infant, solely reliant upon her, brings.

His final call was to recommend the National Health Service in Britain to abandon pain relief strategies and instead to encourage women to use natural pain relief methods such as yoga,, hypnosis, massage support from their partners, hydrotherapy and birthing pools.

In the birthing chapter in The Essence of Woman you will read a number of other ways that you can maximize the birthing experience so that it supports evolution rather than devolution.

Needless to say Australian birthing experts labeled Dr Walsh’s comments as dangerous. There is an entrenched view in Australian medical circles that needs swift revision. Currently statistics indicate that 30% of births are caesarean.

That means that there are many children out there who are being deprived of their natural birth-right to optimum health and well-being, designed by nature to ensure not only the survival of the human race but its ongoing evolutionary ‘thrival’.

If you would like to obtain a copy of my book The Essence of Woman go to essenceofwoman.com/
 

Many people are talking about the polar shift that is predicted to be happening in 2012. I wrote on this topic in a recent post in my blog. There is a cloud of gloom and doom surrounding the forecast because a number of commentators have interpreted it to mean that the world is coming to an end.

For many, in particular young people, the sense of hopelessness that such a belief incurs not only saps them of their sense of hope for a bright future, but it is also downright damaging. For some, stockpiling and squirreling away for desperate times has become an obsession.

From my understanding of what is going on in the world right now, this polar reversal is one of the most exciting and promising evolutionary shifts that the world has experienced for thousands of years.

In reality what is happening is that the shift represents a turn-around of global direction, not necessarily physically but energetically, from a prevailing masculine energy shaping the views, structures, customs, beliefs and behaviors of the world we live in to a more feminine energy. This shift is fast becoming prevalent and preferred by people at the grassroots level.

At last the balance is being redressed as feminine values are coming into play in the wake of the crumbling of existing patriarchal (masculine) societal structures that have shaped society for thousands of years and culminated in a male-dominated religions, economy, government and health management.

Furthermore, the general populace, more informed than they have ever been in the history of humankind, thanks in large part to the internet, is demanding this softer more female approach.

One example of this is in their choice of health care. People want to be proactive and take responsibility for their own health-care, not just go to a doctor and be directed, through the use of harsh pharmaceuticals and invasive techniques, by an authority outside of themselves.

Since the late 1980’s over 60% of Australian people have exercised their option of choice by selecting Natural Medicine as a preferred treatment strategy. This is compared to a 2% usage rate for natural therapists in the 1960’s.

People are voting with their feet and choosing an inclusive form of health management where they are in a cooperative and collaborative relationship with their therapist.

Other examples of the more inclusive, less directed approach being demanded include the upsurge in networking that is now such a prevalent method of doing business, the vigilant watch over child abuse and pornography, and the Obama-led 180 degree shift in political direction, driven by a significant proportion of the American population, away from war-mongering and power strutting to caring for the nation’s people.

This morning (26th March, 2009) I listened to a program on ABC radio about the influence of the internet in developing new ways of doing business globally.

What was discussed was that at the moment we are not only witness to the collapse of the economy, but a radical disintegration of the existing patriarchal structures. These changes include not only how we do business, but how we live our lives, relate to one another and what dreams and ideals we hold for our future and that of our children.

The feminine values of cooperative co-creating, networking, alliances for group enhancement, nurturing, connection and consideration of the whole, rather than the part, are all expressed in the way the internet functions.

The internet, the unstoppable phenomenon revolutionizing the world, operates as an interconnecting web with no hierarchical, linear structure organizing or controlling its direction. The primary product sold online is information, much of which is shared freely and cooperatively.

Products are commonly not tangible and concrete but involve participation in a ‘resonance’ group of like-minded people forming cells of thought for which membership is paid to enter the network. Alliances are formed between web-site operators that involve cooperative marketing in a win-win strategy that is the antithesis of competitive marketing. And in many cases customers, or members, are consulted about product development so that they not only feel included in the evolution of a product, but ensure a better product through the ‘whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ principle (the old two heads are better than one approach).

All of these strategies are expressions of the feminine value system, biologically inscripted into the female body.

We can no longer sit and watch while women are refused holy orders in the churches, are overlooked in preference to a male elected representation at Governmental levels, and have to cover their bodies and walk behind men in Muslim countries.

We don’t have to fight for our rights – that is the ‘old way’ masculine approach. We just have to believe that as women and the bearers of the feminine essence we must stand firm and hold the place for peace, cooperation and connection in the world.

The planet is groaning under the weight of the old way of doing things. The environment needs nurture and cooperative co-existence, not plunder and collateral damage from war-mongering and power-grabbing.

All these rapid world changes point to the break-down of the old and an emergence of a new way of being. Feminine values are by no means ‘new’ but are at last taking their place on the world stage alongside the existing masculine paradigm to soften, solidify and moderate future directions of the planet.

In the truest sense female and male are now ready to stand together respecting and honouring each other to create wholeness and generate a harmony that has never before been known on the planet. This is the emergence of the New Age of Enlightenment, predicted to occur in 2012, and is heralded by a polar shift in consciousness from the masculine to the feminine polarity.

  This exciting course is the first of its kind – it is offered to women from all walks of life - but more particularly to women who:

• have menstruation or gynaecological problems
• are considering having a child and want to consciously conceive
• are experiencing fertility problems
• are already pregnant
• are coping with the early stages of motherhood
• are in a primary relationship that is stressful and demanding
• want to understand the ways to get the best out of your relationship

The course is based on the Body-Mind understanding expressed in the book The Essence of Woman

It will be conducted as a workshop. This structure ensures that participants will gain understanding through  experiencing and sharing with other participants, as well as learning new and insightful information designed to assist them in their life process.

It also allows personal interaction with me, to answer your personal questions and to guide you through your own unique issues. You will get first-hand answers, strategies and advice gleaned from my thirty years in clinical practice working with women and from my own life experience.

I have many real life case histories to share (real names withheld for privacy of course). Each of these personal stories will have some resonance with you in your own life and will offer new ways of seeing yourself out of any personal dilemma you are currently experiencing, particularly in the realm of relationships.

Originally set down to commence on March 21st, 2009, we have responded to requests for a more user-friendly timetable, particularly for Mums with young children. I have responded by making the course shorter, starting a little later in the year and making the gaps between the dates longer.

 Also, the new dates will not clash with the large number of long weekends that are such a big part of the first half of the year.

The new dates are scheduled for the first Saturday of each month starting in June and finishing in September, i.e., 6th June, 4th July, 1st August and 5th September.

Included in this more compact and restructured course will be one day on Relationships, an inclusion that is a natural outcome of the Essence of Woman content.

This is one of the directions that my work is taking me because it is so obvious that the quality of our intimate relationships is such a crucial part of everyone’s life.

I do apologise to those who have already booked for canceling out at the last minute. I can assure you that the ‘new improved’ version will be worth the wait!
More details on the course in following newsletters.