The Radiant Mission
The Radiant Mission
83. Intro to God's Design for Women's Health
Host: @theradiantmission
Co-Host: @rachelsmithsmith
Reel: Women & Men are on Different Body Clocks
Reel: Interesting Visual (Video) of the Menstrual Cycle
Taking Charge of Your Fertility - Purchase on Amazon
The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles & Optimize Your Fertility - Purchase on Amazon
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DISCLAIMER: NOT MEDICAL ADVICE
Join us for the introduction of our new series, "God's Design for Women's Health." We discuss the incredible intricacies of the female body. From hormones to the endocrine system, this episode focuses on the miraculous design of women’s bodies.
We peel back the curtain on the marvels of the female reproductive system. In this episode, we're breaking down surprising facts about the cervix, exploring the critical role of fallopian tubes in conception, and navigating the intricate dance of hormones that orchestrate the menstrual cycle and fertility. We're keeping it real by sharing our attempts to understand our bodies, emphasizing the value of fertility awareness for self-empowerment.
Come along with us as we challenge societal views on menstruation and debunk misconceptions about conceiving post-35. This episode invites you to view your body as a temple—beautifully designed and deserving of the utmost care. Celebrate the wonder of natural cycles and embrace the truth about women's health for a more informed and radiant life. Tune in and unlock the secrets to a healthier, more empowered you! 🌸💪 #WomensHealth #PodcastIntro
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Shabagain kite weekend. Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission Podcast. My name is Rebecca Toomey and I'm here with my amazing co-host and sister, rachel Smith. Hey, everyone, we're on a mission to encourage and inspire you as you're navigating through your life and with your relationship with Yahweh. Over the past few months we've been in a series called God Design for Birth. We have been talking all about how the Lord made our bodies to create in birth life and the importance of trust in that process, and we were so blessed to hear the stories of many wonderful faith-led women including my sister here from women who went through a hospital birth to then a home birth, unassisted births, vbac, two C's at a birthing center, to recovering after birth and healing from birth trauma. We really dove deep during this series and I really hope that if you listened through you got a little nugget here or there that you could take with you or some encouragement. And if you are new here, we invite you to look back and tune in to these stories and see if something resonates. Or, better yet, start from the beginning of the series, meaning the beginning of the podcast, because it definitely builds. I know sometimes we want to jump into a podcast and there's an episode that really stands out to us. But I encourage you to go back because I've been thinking, ray, a lot about this podcast and how, where we started with talking about spiritual warfare as our first topic and then how it's kind of just continued and we've had this theme of the human body and the medical system and whatnot as a part of this show throughout, and it feels like a growth for us as we've gone through it. Maybe our listeners might catch on to that. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:I was actually just talking with someone on Instagram messages the other day and sharing our first birth stories, which are like episode 8, 9, 10, 11, I think. And then I'm like and then, if you want to hear how it goes for me for my third birth, it's episode 73 or something I don't remember. Yeah, that's exactly the number. I was like it might be cool to kind of hear him back to back, because I haven't even, I'm just telling the stories. So we recorded those what? Over a year ago, even more than that, two years ago, I don't know. Yeah, it'll be two years in July, wow, like that, and we're in March or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's crazy how far we've come and just it's cool to see how things have evolved.
Speaker 1:And I was talking with someone recently too about this topic that we're going to talk about today, which is God's design for women's health and birth control and fertility and hormones, all that stuff, and kind of sharing my experience with birth control, and I was thinking about it and how long ago it was. It was a decade now, a little less than a decade, when I was starting to kind of awaken to what was going on. But to be where I am now, I could have never had the viewpoint or perception that I have today if I hadn't gone through those things. But even still, I feel that I've woken up more since then. I could have talked about the dangers of birth control when I was going through what I was going through, but I can really talk about it now, reflecting back, because there are some things like lingering side effects or things that impact you longer term that you're not going to know until a little bit later, and I guess that's kind of the reflection is. Now is the time to talk about it. I wasn't ready to talk about it then and maybe you weren't ready to talk about it then. We still had some learning to do. We still had some experiences to go through. For me, it's been birth and going through becoming a mother that has allowed me to see birth control in a different light. So, yeah, we're going to get into that.
Speaker 1:I do want to disclaimer this podcast and all our podcasts that this is not medical advice. We are not quote medical professional. We are two women that are sharing our experiences. So what you're going to hear is a mixture of our own personal stories, our own personal journeys, some other folk stories that have been shared with us woven in, and then some research too, and we're going to share some details from the source itself, meaning, if we talk about birth control, we're going to talk about from the actual company's inserts and what they have to say about it or what they have to say for themselves, let's say, to give it a fair conversation, and we're all about informed consent. We're not here to tell you what to do or to judge you for anything.
Speaker 1:You're hearing me speak right now saying that I have taken birth control and I've taken a lot of birth control pills. Maneuvering are you doing this? Yeah, I think that this can be a sensitive topic for some people too, because they feel like and I know I did at 1.2, that it's so important to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Thank you, until I really dove into this topic, I didn't know that there was any other way outside of, you know, using barrier protection to prevent pregnancy, and so I think this can just be so personal to women. For that reason, yeah, but there are other ways. Not that, you know, we're necessarily gonna get into that in this episode because you don't wanna talk about it. Yeah, we may talk a little bit about it next week. We're gonna share our personal stories and we've talked about it before and we have talked about it before. I'll just throw it out there. I mean, why make anyone wait? There are other methods out there. Check out the book Taking Charge of your Fertility. There's another book called the Fifth Vital Sign. Again, we have discussed these in the past. Fertility Awareness Method is one way to track your cycles.
Speaker 1:But we're gonna get into a little bit more of the depth of this first before we get into that stuff. So I say let's go ahead and jump into it, because we're gonna transition to a new series today. Guys, it is not a far jump from birth, because this topic is for the very same person involved in birth. It is women, god's design for women's health, and we're gonna be. We wanna dive today into Yahweh's design of the female body and our hormones and really talk about how we can nourish and protect the femininity that we have been given, because we are not the same as men. We have some things that are unique about us, and it's important that we recognize and care for those aspects of our body and not outsource it to other people without understanding what it is that we're outsourcing. So we're not gonna be able to get into everything, because how could we right? It's like such a huge topic. We could. That's why it's a series, but there are a few things that we wanna share about women's body parts, the hormonal matrix, and then, as I mentioned, rachel and I are gonna share some of our personal experiences, with birth control, specifically, and coming into womanhood, our periods, all that stuff, and how those experiences led us to where we are today, with sharing these stories and doing this whole series.
Speaker 1:So, that said, what does God's design for women's health even mean To me? Yahweh, he designs the anatomy of women to be different than men. We actually have body parts that men don't have. They have some parts that we don't have and our hormones function in different ways. They may have some of the same hormones that we do, but they don't function in the same way for men that they do for women. There actually was a great reel that kind of summed this up. I sent it to Rachel and I'll include it in the show notes.
Speaker 1:That talks about how women are on a 28 day cycle with their hormones and different things are happening during that time period. Yeah, we're on a monthly cycle. We're on a monthly cycle where men are just on a 24 hour clock. Every day starts over, so it's different. Going through life and the experience of life for men, arguably, is very similar day to day, where, with women, because we're going through this fertility cycle I would call it you're in your fertility years, your estrogen is rising and low, going up and down in all your different hormones Estrogen, I think that's what I just said. Progesterone yeah, same thing. Yeah, we're going through this ebb and flow and I think many women can relate because they know when they are ovulating or getting close to ovulation they may feel some things happening within their body, or when they're getting close to their period, you may feel extra emotional or whatever it might be. That's those hormones shifting in your cycle, but it's a monthly cycle, so let's talk a little bit about what do women have that men don't? This is probably a pretty obvious one, but men don't have a uterus.
Speaker 1:Women have a uterus, and that's described as or the clinical way to describe it is. It's a pear-shaped organ where a fertilized egg implants and a developing fetus grows during pregnancy. That is the function of the uterus. We also have ovaries. Oh sorry, go ahead Real quick, though.
Speaker 1:About the uterus, I just wanted to kind of drop this tidbit out there, and I sent you a picture or something about it a while ago, but we all can have the image in our mind of the uterus as kind of that you know a little round, with like the hands and going off of it, which are the floppy intubes, with the you know little round balls, which are the ovaries like, and you know, people have made it into a caricature and stuff of what our uterus looks like, and then we might even see it in like graphics for showing the female anatomy. I saw this picture of what the uterus actually looks like in our body, though, and it's nothing like those graphics. I thought that was so cute. It didn't have eyes no, it didn't, and it wasn't smiling. It's actually the uterus and the ovaries and the fallopian tubes are all like mashed together, essentially, and it's there's like fascia all around it that it really is like crammed in there, like, and the reason that it was pertinent is that it's essentially pressing up against our intestines and stuff, like all of the organs are really just smashed in there, and so it made a lot of sense of like.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, if you know you've had like intestinal, you know distress from something you ate, it can feel like cramps, like almost like in your uterus. Or if you, you know, are PMSing, or you know starting your period and you're feeling cramps and then it feels like it's causing you intestinal distress. Anyway, I just kind of wanted to throw that in there because it's something I just saw recently. I never imagined it like that. I thought there was all free floating in like some kind of liquid in our body, I don't know. Well, that is totally fascinating.
Speaker 1:I remember when I learned about the pelvic floor and that the pelvic floor is a group of muscles and our anus is connected to the pelvic floor, as is our vagina, through to the cervix, through to the uterus that whole sect is attached and also the anus, which is why sometimes you feel things in your butt, so to speak, when you're having a baby, because it's all connected there. But that's not something that you really think much of until you discover that you have pelvic floor issues and then you're like, oh wow, I did not know all of these things were connected to each other. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really is. Anyways, keep going.
Speaker 1:The uterus is also super tiny and it's a muscle. Isn't it the size of like a walnut when there's not a baby in it, or is it? Yeah, it's super tiny, which also makes it more interesting when you think about the context of an IUD, of how small the uterus is and how big an IUD is, and that, technically, that's why there's the concern of perforation, because sometimes people's IUDs perforate the uterus. I can totally see why now, now that I understand the actual size of the uterus, because you see 2D graphics of this pretend cartoon written out uterus and it looks like, wow, that's cool. Do you see that? Do you see that? Do you want me to go wizard? I have just. No, that was crazy. All right, now you have to explain what just happened. Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 1:Apparently, if you make a heart shape, like I just made a heart shape with my hands, it made heart emojis on the Apple recording. So that was really funny. I had no idea. That actually is a cool little trick. I'm gonna have to try that. Did it work for me? No, just you. Maybe it's in front of your microphone? No, I don't have that setting on. I don't know why. I've never. That's never happened to me before. But anyway, like Rachel said, uterus.
Speaker 1:So then we also have the ovaries two of them, that's where the eggs are produced the ova and hormones such as estrogen and progesterone. Then we have the fallopian tubes. These connect the ovaries to the uterus. They provide a pathway for the eggs to travel from the ovaries into the uterus. Interesting fun fact about the fallopian tubes that I didn't know as a kid I learned as I got older was that they're not actually attached attached the fallopian tubes. They kind of had these little tentacles almost at the end, which is really interesting. Yeah, so it's almost like the egg bursts out of the ovaries, and this is how ectopic pregnancies can happen, even outside of the uterus.
Speaker 1:I saw some crazy videos recently about pregnancies happening in the abdominal no, abdominal, abdominal, thank you, abominable Anyways the abdomen cavity and it's because of there is a gap. I mean it's very, very, very rare, but there's a gap between the ovary and the fallopian tubes so the egg can kind of travel out. Yeah, I mean the goal is for not to, but that does happen on a rare occasion, so let's not create any unnecessary fears. And it was normal. It was normal. It was like an incredibly rare like, and actually the woman who had a pregnancy in her abdomen, outside of the uterus, like it was like attached to her intestines or something, she went to like 32 weeks and they had to have a C-section, obviously, but delivered a healthy baby like crazy it is, it's amazing. It's amazing the baby still found a way to just do his thing, grow because it was inside of a sack.
Speaker 1:So then we have the cervix. That is the lower part of the uterus that connects to the vagina, and obviously this is a crucial part of childbirth. The cervix changes and gets, it softens, it opens. It's a very cool part of this whole female anatomy system. You know, the one thing about the cervix like after having a vaginal birth for the first time is, you know, neither of you or I did cervical checks with.
Speaker 1:You know our physiological births, but like part of me kind of wishes, like I checked myself, like just out of curiosity of like to feel with the cervix, because I felt my cervix, you know, outside of pregnancy and birth, because I've practiced fertility awareness and a big part of fertility awareness is getting to know you know your cervix size. So it just I don't know, out of curiosity. I mean, I don't think it was like I didn't even occur to me in labor to stick my finger in there and fill my own cervix, but it just kind of sounds like cool, like to right, to like see how much that opens, like it's like this muscle, it's a muscle, right, the cervix is a muscular organ. Okay, yeah, so did you have any curiosities of feeling your own? So, funny enough, I actually did try to feel for my cervix when I was pregnant with Ben, but I couldn't. I don't know, I just couldn't. Was it during the birth or in pregnancy? I feel like I don't remember if it was, it wasn't. I don't think it was when I was in labor. I feel like it was closely before and I was just trying to like see if I could feel up there. But then I'm like I don't want to do this. Yeah, because here's the thing is, I personally feel like why introduce bacteria? Yeah, that's why I don't think it's worth it. The curiosity that I have, exactly that's why I was like why am I doing this? And then, you know, just didn't anymore. But it is cool.
Speaker 1:The cervix is a very it's interesting that it can Cool feature. We have installed it's a cool feature. Yeah, it could open and close and yeah, it's a cool thing. So that connects to the vagina, which is a muscular tube. So the vagina tube it's funny that it's called a muscular tube. The vagina itself is also a muscle that's connected to a muscle that's connected to another muscle. Do we ever think about how our lady parts are muscles? They're a bunch of muscles and that they're used during the birth process to literally work baby down and out. I mean, even they're muscles that have automatic systems, like the uterus automatically contracts. We don't do that Like we do, you know, contracting a bicep or you know whatever, and the same with the cervix, like these are all automatic functions. Yeah, yeah, so those are a couple of body parts that women have that men don't have.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to talk about what men have, because this is about women's health, but you can Google it or ask the chat GPT that's yucky, what the heck about that. Maybe another series? I have three boys. I hear enough about boy parts. Yes, maybe that's its own series. We can talk about that. But no, really we're going to do an episode. I'm saying we could, if we have special requests to hear about the men's anatomy, you know, just throw us a line. We almost are doubt that there's not a single man listening right now that we've gotten this far, I agree with you, and I don't know if men would want to listen to us talk about men's parts. Yeah, men have given up on this podcast. A long time ago Now, I actually had on my list breasts, because that actually comes up as one of the things that distinguishes men and women's anatomy.
Speaker 1:Even though both men and women technically have breast tissue, women have more developed breasts and especially during puberty, pregnancy and due to hormones. So there is kind of a distinguished difference there. That is noted. But I really wanted to talk more about what do we do with this, because some people know some of these things but it's like all right, who cares? What's the big deal?
Speaker 1:These organs play a huge role in the health of our bodies, and women that have PCOS or endometriosis or other related issues understand just how important this is. Like whether you want to have a baby or you don't want to have a baby. Like either way, your entire reproductive system, your life, depends on it. It's part of your body. Healthy ovulation is so important, even if you don't want to have a baby. So it doesn't start and stop with our desire to procreate. It is a part of our being, our life, and we can't be in optimal health if this system isn't working the way it's supposed to. Like you said, women with PCOS or other reproductive health issues and there's other organs that obviously we need to take care of Our kidneys, our liver, our gallbladder, our thyroid and men have those too and need to care for those too. But we have all these other organs that impact our lives because we're on this clock. Even when we're not in our fertility years, these organs still play a role in our hormones, even post-menopausal. So it's just important that we kind of come to this understanding of the way the Lord created our bodies and that he gave us these organs to, like you said, not even just for procreation, but for the full functionality of our bodies. So this isn't necessarily a pro fertility. Let's learn how to be the most fertile so I can have a baby conversation, that's great. If you learn something from this and are able to take it to improve your fertility, awesome. But if that's not the stage of life that you're in, just understand that these body parts matter and they do play a role in your overall health, especially your mental health, because hormones are a huge part of this.
Speaker 1:So, to kind of transition into that talk about hormones, I want to talk a little bit about the endocrine system, because who talks about that? Nobody. The endocrine system is a complex network of glands and organs that produce and release hormones. We always hear this word hormones, like I was like at the beginning of this. Oh, estrogen and progesterone, like we hear those words said. But what does that mean? They are part, or the hormones being released are part, of the endocrine system, and when? These glands and organs that produce and release hormones, they're chemical messengers that regulate numerous physiological processes in the body. So these processes include growth, development, metabolism, immune function, mood and reproduction, and the endocrine system actually works in collaboration with the nervous system to maintain homeostasis so that the body's internal environment remains stable and despite any external changes.
Speaker 1:Something that was interesting to me when I was studying into the endocrine system was how a balanced hormones plays into immune system, and I was thinking about this in my own terms, because I feel like I've been kind of gone through some periods of sickness over the last couple of months where my immune system, I felt like, was garbage, and I've been focusing on gut health and I can focus on gut health all day long but if my hormones is, my endocrine system isn't being, I'm not paying attention to that, then I'm not looking at it from a holistic perspective. And let's take it a step further. When I was doing research on the copper IUD, which is one that I had, it suppresses the immune system, it's an immunosuppressant and it's like oh, no wonder why women have so many issues and it's so easy for people to get sick. So I thought that that was interesting.
Speaker 1:A couple key components of the endocrine system include the glands that I mentioned, and glands are specialized organs that secrete hormones into the bloodstream. Major endocrine glands include the pituitary gland, the thyroid gland, adrenal glands, pancreas and ovaries and women and testicles and male testes. It also includes hormones that we just mentioned. It includes the pituitary gland, which is often referred to as the master gland. It is the gland that's at the base of the brain and controls the function of many other endocrine glands. I know that this is a big one, that a lot of people like to post that same image of the brain. And then there's this one little hot spot that lights up the pituitary gland. But it's true, that is communicators. It's really tiny and so important. It's tiny and so important. It communicates to the rest of our bodies, our hormones. I skipped over that, but our hormones are chemical messengers that are released by the endocrine glands that travel through the bloodstream and they target cells or organs. Hormones bind to specific receptors on these target cells and they initiate a response or influence cellular activity, which is interesting.
Speaker 1:Thyroid gland I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with this lately because thyroid dysfunction is something that's becoming more known or more prevalent over the last couple of years or decades, and it's located in the neck, and the thyroid gland produces hormones that regulate the metabolism and they influence various physiological processes as well the adrenal glands. They are sitting right on top of those kidneys and the adrenal glands produce hormones such as cortisol, which responds to stress and adrenaline. That plays a role in that fight or flight response. I probably have super-duper high cortisol running through my body at all times. Yeah, this trend on social media for the adrenal cocktails because a big part of keeping your adrenal glands at working the way they should is having enough sodium and enough potassium. I don't really know if it's a trend or if it's a health practice that we should do more regularly to make sure our adrenal glands are firing on all cylinders. If we are stressed, we are burning through that fuel for our adrenal glands and then that messes with our hormones.
Speaker 1:Really bad Cocktail is essentially just something like one of the ones recommended. A lot is vitamin C, so just a little bit of orange juice, really high-quality sea salt. When I was doing it, I would do cream of tartar. Cream of tartar is actually pure potassium. What is cream of tartar made out of? I don't know Tartar. What's tartar made out of it comes from? I feel like it was like grape husks or something. It's natural, it's from some kind of fruit. I feel like it's grapes, but it's really high in potassium. That's all I know. Are you looking it up? I'm looking it up. It is potassium by tartarate, a byproduct of wine making. See, I remember making some pasties. It is a white powdery substance that forms inside of wine barrels during the fermentation of grape juice, and wine is fermented to. Taric acid in the grape juice combines with potassium ions to create potassium by tartarate crystals. Yeah, so if you wanted to help your adrenal glands to function properly, which will impact your hormones, then doing a little cream of tartar and some sea salt and something like orange juice. I think that's one of the different things. Coconut water is another one, because coconut water is actually a good source of potassium as well. So, anyways, that's a little tidbit. Fun facts yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:Another part of the endocrine system is the pancreas. It has both endocrine and exocrine functions. So as an endocrine gland, it releases insulin and glucagon, and that regulates our blood sugar, and, of course, the ovaries and testes. They also they produce hormones estrogen and progesterone, and females, testosterone and males and that influences sexual development and reproduction. And then the hypothalamus is also included in this. It's not a gland, but it plays a crucial role in the endocrine system by releasing hormones that stimulate or inhibit the secretion of hormones from the pituitary gland, so that one is kind of an extra little deep one.
Speaker 1:And if you're wondering why are we talking about all this, it's because these are the bodies that God created for us and they are extremely amazing. They're complex and it's not the easiest thing in the world to kind of understand. But when we start to look at just how amazing it has been created for us and all of these things trigger one thing, triggers another thing, and we start to learn about how outside influences can change our endocrine system or our hormones and influence them in negative ways that's when we can really step back and go. How am I going to treat my temple, or how can I heal this temple that God created for me? And I think that's why I'm so passionate about talking about this.
Speaker 1:And this is also a great introduction to our conversation on birth control, because we have been lied to. We have been told that birth control is safe and that birth control there are. Yeah, there's side effects, but like, oh, they're rare, it's no big deal, you'll just have a headache or you'll feel bloated or you might gain weight. But it's so much deeper than that On the surface. That's what it is. On the surface it's like an iceberg right Like on the surface you see the iceberg, but underneath it's so much deeper. We are messing with this entire incredible endocrine and hormonal complex that God created. When we take synthetic hormones because they are not the same, natural, naturally occurring things in our body will stop triggering. They will stop happening. Kind of like we talked about with epidurals. An epidural stops your body from producing the natural hormones, like oxytocin, that your body will create during birth. The same thing with birth control.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about hormones real quick. Hormones are chemical messengers that are produced by glands in the endocrine system and released into the bloodstream. And released into the bloodstream, they travel throughout the whole body. They play a crucial role in regulating physiological processes, so they're super important and kind of the difference between men and women when it comes to hormones is women have higher levels of estrogen than men, which includes estradiol, estrone and estriol. Those are all different variations of estrogen within our bodies. It's not just straight estrogen. There's different buckets there which I found really interesting, and they do more than just help with the reproductive system. They also regulate the menstrual cycle, but they maintain our bone density. So if your estrogen levels are off, it could impact your bone density, which, if you're on birth control, you're suppressing your natural estrogen. Natural estrogen, yeah, real quick. And we're gonna get into what birth control actually does more in a minute, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:But there's kind of a misconception that birth control tricks your body into thinking you're pregnant but it actually doesn't, because the bleeding that you have when you're on the pill if you even do, because some don't it's not a period, it's a breakthrough bleed from a lack of hormones when you take the week off, if you do. That's why, if you don't take a break, you don't bleed. Right, exactly, the hormonal message that birth control is sending to your body is not akin to pregnancy. It's actually more akin to menopause, and one of the biggest parts of menopause is that our estrogen tanks, like a post-menopausal woman, has much lower estrogen than a cycling woman or a woman who is fertile, and so that's one of the reasons why women in later life are at higher risk for issues like osteoporosis because, like you said, estrogen plays a big role in our bone density. So once you lose estrogen, then you're at a higher risk for having issues like osteoporosis. So imagine if you are on a hormone treatment, like birth control for years and years and years and years before you're even in that later stage of life that can have a long-term impact on things like bone density at a younger age and beyond. So that's why you're kind of giving this little science lesson here, to just drive the point home that this isn't just about it is our reproductive organs, but it's not just about reproduction, it's about all of the systems.
Speaker 1:Estrogen dips in early pregnancy and progesterone rises correct, they actually both rise in pregnancy, but it is more important for progesterone to really. Progesterone is what really takes off, but estrogen is also high in pregnancy. I was sitting here wondering if I could build a theory, because but I don't think I can I think you're right that it does rise. Yeah, I was wondering if the reason that I get achy when I am first pregnant is because of the change in estrogen, and maybe it's oh, that would be really interesting, isn't that it could be the change in progesterone that causes that feeling? I get that really weird feeling where I feel like all my bones are just aching when I am very, very newly pregnant, like just the first couple of weeks. So, but some things. That's just a small example, though, of how something so minor with our hormones, like things, are happening, you know, yeah, just a small change like that, and I guess pregnancy is not a small change. But All right, back to hormones.
Speaker 1:Progesterone is one of the other hormones that women have that it helps prepare the uterus for a fertilized eggs implantation, and that supports early pregnancy. Prolactin both men and women do have prolactin, but women typically have higher levels of it, and especially during pregnancy and breastfeeding, prolactin stimulates breast milk production in the mammary glands. Then we have oxytocin, referred to as the love hormone or bonding hormone, and it's more prevalent in women than it is in men, but it plays a very strong role in social bonding and childbirth and breastfeeding. Then women also have follicle stimulating hormones that are called FSH and luteinizing hormone called LH, and they're both essential to the regulation of our menstrual cycles and the production of eggs in the ovaries. And then we also have human chorionic gonotropopin I've never actually said it out loud because it's called HCG and it's produced only during pregnancy, but it's crucial for maintaining the corpus latum, which in turn produces progesterone early in pregnancy. So again, men have some of these, but it's different for women, and, as you are probably hearing.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of different things that are going on. We've got our endocrine system, we've got our hormones, we've got all these organs that are happening inside of this and we're on a cycle. We're on a 28 to 30 or whatever. Your cycle is a regulated cycle that is involving our hormones and our bodies. If we're in our fertile years which I looked it up and it is, I want to be cautious to not say fertile Women come into their fertile years or begin that process at different ages.
Speaker 1:It's somewhere between age of nine and 16, depends on the woman. But just because a woman's system kicks up does not mean that she is in her prime fertile years. Just because you get your period at nine doesn't mean your body is grown to have a baby yeah, prepared for pregnancy, exactly. I always said that the most fertile years are in your 20s. Is that accurate? That's what they say, that's what the internet will tell you is that your late teens to mid-20s is the most fertile years, but many people have fertile years in their 30s and 40s. So it's hard to say. I think that there's a lot of different scenarios that we go through too, of why and I don't think we are even going to have time to get into this, especially today on over 35 and fertility. I think there's a lot more to it than you just get less fertile. A lot less women try to have babies at that time. Anyway, let's not get into that.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about the cycle really quick. Menstruation is the beginning of our cycle. That stays one to five and that's when our cycle begins and that marks the beginning of a new cycle. I don't know if we want to get into that. The period yeah, the period. I don't want to know if we want to get into the details of that, but basically it's just the unerun lining has thickened from the previous cycle to support a potential pregnancy and it sheds if there is no pregnancy. Menstruation is triggered by a drop in estrogen and progesterone levels. You're experiencing a shift of hormones, hormone drop and period. We are not taught or told to protect our space or to do anything. We're expected to live our lives normally every single day, no matter what part of our cycle we're in. The truth is we're probably going to be more tired.
Speaker 1:I've been reading some really cool things lately about don't work out when you're on your period. Your body is in a state of rest, let your body rest. That was the most encouraging thing I've read in a long time, because we're just pushed to keep going. I mean that's why they came out with tampons. Right, you could just keep going, I'm sure. In biblical days, what were women doing? You probably know the answer to this they were laying in their period tents. There you go. Exactly, they were laying in their period tents. No, I even just outside of the biblical context, but just thinking about women thousands of years ago, even hundreds of years ago, being on your period when you don't have flumming and the modern conveniences, even just pads that we have, they use rags. That's why the old school way is saying on the rag Did you know that? Yes, yes, I think that it was very common to just you had to stay still and you really had to rest because otherwise you're bleeding all over the place.
Speaker 1:If we think our periods are inconvenient today, which I think every month, I'm like gosh, such an inconvenience of my life, because it really is. I guess society plays a part in that, because I think what you're saying is culturally and older times maybe society had a little bit better systems in place to support women to rest. But we don't get that luxury anymore. Stick a tamp on it and get to work. Exactly, go work out, keep working out and keep going to work and keep doing whatever you're doing. Well, nobody's going to get off work because they have their period, when really the best time to work out is the follicular phase, which is the next one. Yeah, tell us about that phase. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:After your period, or days one through 13, or I guess it would be really like six through 13, depending on how long your period is, because some people have like four day long periods and everybody's period is a week. Whatever, your period ends to day 13, or really when ovulation happens, is the follicular phase. This is like when you're going to feel your best in your cycle. This is when the hypothalamus in the brain releases the genadotropin releasing hormone, or GNRH, and that stimulates the pituitary gland to release the follicle stimulating hormone, or FSH. Then FSH stimulates the growth of follicles and the ovaries which has the egg in it. As those are growing, they produce estrogen, like the actual follicles are also producing estrogen which is thickening the lining of the uterus. Your body has just has this symphony happening to release the egg, because there's nothing that the female body wants more than to get pregnant. Yeah, that's what this design is for. I'm not saying that in like you need to want to get pregnant at every moment. I'm just saying this is what your body wants. This is what your body is doing. Yeah, it's way to be designed Exactly.
Speaker 1:Once that thickens and all of your estrogen is up, it's peaking and the follicles are ready and then you have a surge of luteinizing hormone in your next phase of your cycle, which is ovulation. It varies, of course, from woman to woman and from cycle to cycle, but around, let's say, day 14 is the number that most people in the medical field say. You have a surge in the luteinizing hormone and that's triggered by your estrogen getting higher and higher and higher. This stimulates the release of a mature egg from one of those follicles and that's ovulation. Then you go on to. You start decreasing down in your cycle. It's like a wave and the peak is your egg releasing and then you go down and next is the luteal phase. Just to go back to how you're feeling is really you should be in that rest and regenerate stage. Administration Regenerate phase is active and feeling your femininity as a woman and not just in a sexual way.
Speaker 1:Well, by ovulation you're like a wild animal. Yeah, that's when you're feeling good, you feel you're most beautiful. You actually can that be when you are slimmest. Your body really does also show different signs in the way that it's carrying water and all that. This is when you are your most energetic. And then, after ovulation, is your luteal phase, where the ruptured follicle that released the egg, it transforms into a structure called the corpus luteum, which produces progesterone. This, to me, is one of the wildest parts about not only the female body but just our cycle in general that we produce essentially a organ every month and then we get rid of it. We're producing this corpus luteum every single month and then it produces the progesterone which is further preparing the uterus lining for potential implantation of that fertilized or that egg being fertilized, because that's what your body is hoping for. If fertilization doesn't occur, then the corpus luteum breaks down and that causes a decrease in the estrogen and the progesterone level. You're coming down, coming down, and then the lack of estrogen triggers menstruation again.
Speaker 1:Totally, I like how you described it as a roller coaster. It's like a wave. It goes up and down. It feels like that too. What's that? Is it? It feels like that too, it does. It does feel like that, especially when you are someone like me that has estrogen dominance. You feel like you're on a roller coaster that's flying off the track. I'm sure and for those that are trying to have a baby, I'm sure that's how it feels too, because you're riding the high of the follicular phase and going through ovulation and then you go through that luteal phase and if there's not a pregnancy, it's your body, your hormones drop and signal that menstrual cycle coming and it's like how depressing is that when you have your period and you're down and you're in that state.
Speaker 1:I hope that this helps women listening to just understand. Their bodies are amazing. God created us and they're amazing. So we're going to leave you with this and next week we're going to talk about we're going to kind of tie this into how this plays into birth control. Now we've come to the conclusion that birth control is pretty poisonous, slash toxic for our bodies because it messes with this cycle that we just talked about. It messes with this and in turn, can cause other health problems, autoimmune disorders or other complications. So stay tuned. Thank you for listening. If you want to follow along outside the podcast. You can do so on Instagram and on Facebook at the radiant mission. Or, of course, if you want to watch this on YouTube and see that funny effect that happened, you can also check this out on YouTube. And today we are going to close with Proverbs 14.1. A wise woman builds her house, while a foolish woman tears hers down with her own hands. We're wishing you a radiant week and take care of those bodies. Ladies, bye, guys, bye, bye.
