Page 10 RAIN July 1976 WOMEN AND HEALTH Health care is one area where there is beginning to be a strong grass roots movement towards self-help care. Slowly, slowly, the institutions are seeing the need to change- inspired in part by the success of the Chinese barefoot doctor program. But the large~t inspiration has beeri, I think, the Womei;i's Movement. All over the country women have been taking charge of their own health needs- learning to ask questions of professionals, learning to examine themselves, and learning to use paraprofessionals- particularly other women-for such .nonillness health needs as bir~h control and birthing. I don't know where the movement towards self-help care for women began-in fact, I suspect it's another one of those magical urges that began simultaneously in many nooks and crannies all over the country. But in any case, one of the earliest groups was the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, a group of women who gathered to share in the con- ' sciousness-raising process and decided to present a course on women's bodies and ended up writing: Our Bodies, Ourselves, Boston Women's Health Book Collective, 1971, $4.95 from: Simon and Schuster 630 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10020 It is a book th.at keeps growing- I know.p_eople who have every version, from the rough newsprint to the newest, fat Simon and Schuster. It has been enormously successful because it is so good. Sections on Anatomy, Relationships, Lesbianism, Nutrition, Rape and Self-Defense, Venereal Disease, Birth Control, Abortion, Childbearing, Menopause and Health C'+re. The new Sexuality section is the finest thing I've seen on the subject anywh-ere- good for women or men. They have a special deal for clinics or groups doing health counseling 1 services: 70% discount (88.5¢/copy) on orders of 12 or more accompanied by an official document verifying health care status. Write to the publisher. Nice move, as it should be required reading for all people everywhere. The Birth Control section of Our Bodies, Ourselves is t~orough, but it doesn't take any sides. Many of us who are trying to wean ourselves from drugs and chemicals have become increasingly disenchanted with The Pill and the IUD ("What does my body really feel like without its daily dose of synthetic hormone?."). A milestone for me-and, as I later learned, for at least five other women I know- was the "Lunaception" article by Louise Lacey which first appeared in the Winter Solstice issue of Co-Evolution Quarterly. Soon thereafter it was published as a b~ok: Lunaception, Louise Lacey, 1975, $7.95 from: Cowilrd, McCann and Geoghegan 200 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 . I stopped taking The Pill that very day and began looking for new options. Lunaception involves charting your temperature and watching for its mid-cycle change (ovulation) and then inducing that peak by sleeping with a light on those middle three days (no light at all the rest of the·month- i.e., heavy curtains if you live in the city). Lacey found that she eventually got into cycle with the moon, ovulating when it was full! Other books talk about other cycles- cosmic 'ones based on the phase of the moon when you were born and an extra cosmic fertility period at that point. It is a method pioneered in Czechoslovakia and accounts for the failure of the rhythm method alone. It involves two abstention periods a month (except on the times they coincide.) For more,information, read: , Natural Birth Control (formerly Astrolotical Birth Control) 1Control), Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, 1972, $1.25 from: Bantam Books 666 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10019 and 1 Natural Birth Control, Art Rosenblum and Leah Jackson, 1974, $2.95 from: Aquarian Research Foundation 5620 Morton St. Philadelphia, PA 19144 The latter book includes a chart for figuring out your own cosmic cycles and combines this method with a finger mucous test (the mucous of your cervix changes consistency at dif~ ferent times of your monthly cycle). All of these methods may sound too far out and in some cases seem to com:radict each other, but I f_eel strongly that they're mqre -in the right direction, and I know of many women who swear by one or the other of them. Their rising popularity is indicated by the increasing number of ads I see in women's mags and elsewhere for charting of cosmic cycles. The Aquarian·Research Foundation (address above) is interested in success and failure stories-and so am I. It's certainly a possibility worth exploring. (I must confess that my o.wn system still hasn't settled down enough to try after seven years on The Pill, even after a whole year!) Now, if you are already happily'pregnant, good news exists in this area as well. Namely, the rising number of home deliveries and women- and baby-centered birthing (as opposed to· birthing for doctors' convenience). Two groups pioneering in the development of birthing clinics and the training of midwives.are in Santa Cruz,.California, and on Stephen Gaskin's Tennessee Farm. Both groups have published books that are a joy to read-full of am~zing pictures and heart-warming tales (scary ones are included as well). Birth Book, 1972, $6 from: Genesis · Press P.O. Box 14457 Palo Alto, CA 94306 Spiritual Midwifery, Ina May and the Farm Midwives, 1975, $5.96 from: The Book Publishing Company The Farm Summertown, TN 38483 Birth Without Violence, Frederick Leboyer, 197 5, $7.95 'from: • Alfred A. Knopf • 201 E. 50th St. New York, NY 10022
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