I intended to write a post on menopause, an issue close to me, so consulted Sabine Wilms’s translation of the Qi Zhongfu’s 1220 text ‘Hundred Questions on Gynecology’. It references the classical stages of women first recorded in the Su Wen (Simple Questions) over 2000...
So the bumpy and divergent road to parenthood has lead you to Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and potentially in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Nowhere near as fun as the natural (in-vivo) option, but sometimes it’s the only way. All the bliss of parenthood hopefu...
Here’s a quick ovary overview, one the most amazing little organs in our body.
Our ovaries are in our lower pelvis, nearly always one on the left and one on the right, about the size of an almond. Often we have no idea they are there, but some people can feel when they...
Traditional Chinese physiology didn’t refer specifically to the thyroid gland, but because it’s actions are so pervasive healthy thyroid function is central to Chinese medicine. Disturbances to thyroid function, which can be linked to stress, genetics or a hormone imb...
The Energetics of food in Traditional Chinese Medicine
Traditional Chinese foodies must have had a great time exploring food. They developed a complex and deep understanding of not just the taste of food, but its very nature. Food as medicine is a very ancient idea. K...
How we perceive menstruation can vary from a deep feeling of belonging within our matrilineal heritage and Mother Earth, to ‘the curse’. We can only wonder what the women of the past were thinking when they left their daughters to discover periods for themselves. Was...
The basic union of life-creation, the joining of the dragon and the phoenix, of yin and yang – it’s obvious that egg and sperm have equal importance in conception. It’s likely you spent years avoiding pregnancy. Then in a solid relationship, at a time of hope for the...
Following on from Petra’s Fertility Fitness talk last week https://youtu.be/DHGYLSgqBZE containing lots of great tips on the why and how to of exercise, this article looks at the personal experience of one woman, Monique Murphy, and the intersection of exercise and r...
Following last weeks FB Live session on mental health, Petra ran out of time to mention that the brain can grow new nueral pathways. This is so freeing and empowering because it can reduce the feeling of 'stuckness' that many feel in times of pain, grief, trauma and st...
