With thanks to my mother for finding this book for me…
Fertility, Cycles and Nutrition by Marilyn Shannon Ladies, are any of you having any of the following problems: heavy menstrual bleeding; cycles too long or too short; painful periods or unpleasant PMS symptoms? I am, and thought of at least half a dozen friends who could use this book as I was reading it. Shannon, a Natural Family Planning instructor, brings together research on using diet and supplements to solve a host of cycle and fertility problems, including many that I’ve heard less informed doctors either discount or want to treat with painful or invasive procedures. Shannon starts with basic nutrition (including a handy chart to photocopy and laminate for easy reference), moves on to supplements, and then covers the normal female cycle in brief, followed by solutions for a number of specific problems.
Downsides: The Catholic perspective (it’s immoral to use a condom even to collect samples to solve a fertility problem?!) can be jarring if you aren’t extremely Catholic. And, being published by the Couple to Couple League rather than a major publisher, you might need to interloan it. Her recommendations for supplements are a little bit confusing. While the dietary guidelines are in two charts, one for regular people, one for pregnant and nursing women, the supplements have one chart of basics, plus lists of things that you might need more of for specific problems. I personally will have to go through with paper to write down exactly how much of what she thinks I need. Most of the information involves being intimately familiar with your cycle. If you aren’t familiar with charting and basic fertility awareness, I would recommend reading Toni Wechsler’s Taking Charge of Your Fertility first. It seems to be mostly tertiary research, for those who care about these things, but she does include her sources, so it would be easy to follow up. It’s the kind of information that gets published one piece at a time all over the place, so that bringing it together is a wonderful service. While I don’t think I trust the Catholic Church to tell me how not to get pregnant, they’re probably experts on how to have more. Even if you’re not concerned with fertility, there’s a lot of information on many female problems. Now that I think of it, if you’re female and I don’t know that you need this book, it might just be that I don’t know you that well. Read it anyway.
