The last chiropractor to promote women's health

by Dr. Madeline Behrendt

I became a chiropractor so I could make a difference. And what a dramatic difference chiropractors have made in the lives of thousands of children! There's plenty more work to do, but in this moment, each of us can bring to mind the face of a child whose life is now better because we stood up and told the truth. That gives me goosebumps.

Honoring the trust implied in our service, it's time to bring the special chiropractic touch to shine on women's health. It's time to recognize the profound impact of chiropractic, and chiropractors, on women's lives. How many more lives can blossom through this?

Many D.C.s eagerly welcome recognition of women's health and they are eager to expand their know-how to include women's topics. For others -- possibly men -- who have not personally experienced the pressure exerted to medicalize every aspect of their lives, there may almost be a visceral response, "Don't know the territory."

Let me reassure you, the information you will be offered is to help increase your expertise and confidence in supporting women's health, and, every topic will be viewed from a subluxation-based perspective.

I offer that the D.C. has a unique and irreplaceable role that includes:

Women benefit from the chiropractic touch. They benefit from the chiropractic philosophy. Without care or this philosophy, we see so many subluxated women walking around like human cocktails -- a few herbs, an OTC drug or two, sharing some vitamins with a co-worker, lost in a circle of "trendy tips" rather than a foundation to build a life on.

And medicine? What influence has the symptom/disease/detection model had on women's health?

The United States is a leader in unnecessary hysterectomies and osteoporosis, while the top selling drugs -- including estrogen which influences cancer -- are sold to women.

There were some very disturbing changes in women's health issues during 2000. They are introduced briefly here, by life cycle:

1. Early puberty. A cover story in Time magazine highlighted the widespread occurrence that girls are starting puberty earlier and earlier. No "cause" was confirmed, but treatment was: putting these young girls on hormone therapy.

2. Menstruation suppression. There is a growing movement to promote menstruation as unnatural, a nuisance and unhealthy, and a drug is being tested designed for period suppression, to be used starting in puberty. The impact of the drug has not been fully addressed, physically, mentally, emotionally or culturally and the destruction possible by interfering with the body's Innate wisdom and function has been ignored.

3. Female = mental disorder. As Prozac's patent was running out, the manufacturer named a new drug with the same active ingredient, Sarafem, that comes with a brand new patent and new market for a newly created disorder: PMDD (Premenstrual Dystrophic Disorder), classified as a mental disorder. What's not new are the problems possible when drugs are promoted as the first choice of care.

4. New medical specialty: Female Sexual Dysfunction. A recent medical conference, sponsored by drug companies, has created a new specialty "Female Sexual Dysfunction/FSD," continuing the medicalization of every aspect of a woman's experience. There are many popular medications (including Prozac/Sarafem) with side effects that include decreased libido, and, once again, medicine addresses drug reactions with more drugs.

5. Women's place in research. Women continued to be overlooked in research studies. The most blatent (and comical) was a study that had been getting a lot of attention because the results reported that men who have sex four times per week (for 45 minutes each) decrease their risk of heart attack. Excuse me, any benefits for those they were they having sex with?

Can you see the dependence that women are being set up for? Hormones for early puberty, drugs for menstruation suppression, then the Pill, then fertility drugs, then hysterectomy, then HRT.

In every example listed, subluxation correction and education promoting the Innate wisdom of the body are painfully absent, and so desperately needed.

Chiropractors have gotten the message out about the abuses of antibiotics, ritalin and vaccines. It's time for attention on women's health also, so the chiropractic woman can make better choices.

It's up to each and every chiropractor to stand up and tell the truth to all the women whose lives they touch, to make a difference in their lives. The WCA Council on Women's Health is here to promote women's health and support D.C.s as they accomplish this vital mission. Don't you be the last chiropractor to promote women's health. If you haven't joined yet, join today.

(Madeline Behrendt, D.C., vice-chair of the World Chiropractic Alliance Council on Women's Health, is author of "A Woman's Experience/A.W.E.," a practice manual offering a subluxation-based perspective on diverse aspects of women's health. Dr. Behrendt has appeared in numerous print and electronic publications, and has recently completed a research paper on chiropractic and women's health, soon to be published in the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research.)