Many women are surprised to learn that coming off birth control doesn’t mean their cycle immediately goes back to normal. Many women suffer from post-pill amenorrhea, or lack of period, and while experts say that it can take between three and six months for your period to become regular again, amenorrhea can last even longer for some women.

“The birth control pill causes women to produce estrogen, testosterone and progesterone levels that are in the menopausal range,” says Dr. Prudence Hall of the Hall Center. “This is because the pill stops the brain from talking to the ovary. It takes time for the brain to reconnect to the ovary to tell it to resume ovulation, which is what brings on the menstrual periods.”

While you don’t need to worry about it if your period doesn’t come back straight away, not getting your period usually means that your estrogen levels are low, and this can be cause for concern.

“Low estrogen can cause depression, anxiety, high blood sugar, brain fog, increased weight, low sex drive, hair loss and many other side effects,” says Hall.

For many women, letting nature take its course is enough, but there are a few foods you can add to your diet that you can make to overcome post-birth control amenorrhea more quickly.

1. Fennel

Naturopathic Doctor Lynn Anderson recommends adding fennel to your diet to stimulate or regulate menstruation, as it contains emenagogue, a substance that stimulates or increases the menstrual flow.

She suggests making a tea from fresh fennel or adding the vegetable to soups or stews.

2. Herbs

Parsley also contains emenagogue, and it is also a folk remedy often associated with overcoming post-pill amenorrhea.

“Although there is no scientific evince for its use, there is plenty of folk medicine literature touting it as a great herb for many uses including stimulating the menstrual flow,” says Anderson.

She also notes that other herbs, such as basil, rosemary, sage, marjoram and oregano, can be effective.

Naturopathic doctor Serena Goldstein, meanwhile, recommends several other herbs, including vitex (chasteberry), partridge berry, mugwort, black cohosh, blue cohosh, and angelica sinensis.

“These can all help tonify the system and promote blood flow,” says Goldstein.

She does note that these are best used under the guidance of a professional, as hormonal imbalances can stem from different causes, and certain herbs can interact with drugs.

3. Flax Seeds

Flax seeds — like nuts, avocado, chia seeds, and olive oil — are a great source of healthy fats. They also contain omega-3 fatty acids — which you’ll also find in evening oil of primrose. These nutrients can help promote healthy hormone balance.

Goldstein also notes the importance of promoting gut health when trying to overcome post-pill amenorrhea. Fiber-rich flax seeds can help remove excess hormones and achieve gut balance.

4. Supplements

Certain supplements have been associated with regaining a regular menstrual cycle, such as B vitamins, zinc, and magnesium. However, Goldstein also recommends working with your cycle when supplementing.

She suggests taking a good B-complex vitamin, fish oil, and ground flax or chia seeds in the first half of the cycle (new moon to full moon) and evening primrose and ground sesame or sunflower seeds the second half of the cycle are (full moon to new moon).

5. Salmon

Not only is salmon a great source of healthy fats and omega-3s, but it also contains vitamin B, which helps support hormone production, liver health, and adrenal health, according to Goldstein.

“Oral contraceptives deplete B vitamins, which are incredibly important in our biochemical reactions, especially pertaining to hormone health, mood, and weight,” she notes.

6. Grass-Fed Red Meat

Red meat is a great source of iron, which can help with blood production, according to Goldstein.

7. Oysters

Oysters are rich in zinc, which is an important mineral for balancing hormones. Experts suggest ensuring you get at least 40 mg of zinc daily.

8. Full-Fat Dairy

Studies have shown that women who eat full-fat dairy are less likely to have ovulatory disorders than those who consume low-fat or nonfat dairy. In 2007, research from the Nurses Health Study showed intake of high-fat dairy food may decrease the risk of anovulatory infertility.

Walter Willett, M.D., told Fit Pregnancy that while the reasons behind this remain unclear to the medical community, “We know that full-fat dairy foods convey the female hormones estrogen and progesterone. Skimming the fat from dairy also removes these hormones, which are attached to fat. Left behind are androgens, or male hormones. When male hormones are unchecked by female hormones, ovulation is impaired.”

Foods to Avoid

There are also a few foods to avoid if you want to get your period back, namely inflammatory foods like wheat, gluten, grains, and processed foods of any kind.

“Removing inflammatory foods to help support the body to restore its natural physiological function can be very beneficial and therefore removing gluten containing foods, grains, and sugar is enhancing that innate process,” explains Hall.

“According to Alessio Fasano, MD from Massachusetts General Hospital, arguably the foremost gastrointestinal specialist in the world, humans cannot properly digest gluten because we do not make the enzymes to break it down,” she continues. “Regardless of whether you are allergic or intolerant to foods that contain gluten, ingesting such foods releases inflammatory compounds that get released into the blood stream and stay elevated for approximately 2 hours in everybody.”

Lifestyle Changes for Overcoming Post-Pill Amenorrhea

There are a few things that you can try aside from diet modifications as well: being sure to get eight hours of sleep a night, stepping back your exercise regimen, acupuncture, yoga, and meditation can all contribute to getting your cycle back on track.

“Our body is a complex structure, so integrated care is certainly beneficial in helping get her period back,” notes Goldstein. “Physical medicine like chiropractic and massage are also wonderful healing modalities to work on structure and alignment. There’s also something innately healing about another human touch. Meditation and yoga are also great to help calm the system, which encourages the body to make reproductive hormones (instead of using resources for more cortisol, aka our stress hormone).”

Anderson also recommends aromatherapy to help overcome post-pill amenorrhea.

“Using fennel, chamomile lavender or mugwort essential oils mixed with carrier oil such as sweet almond oil with a massage is the common use,” she says.

Of course, there are occasionally more complex reasons why a woman may not be getting her period.

“The pill suppresses hormone production, so her body is getting used to making those hormones again,” says Goldstein. “If the reason for why she was put on the pill was not corrected, then she may experience the same concerns upon getting off the pill because the problem was tempo ‘solved’ temporarily. It could also mean that there was an underlying condition that was not yet addressed.”

These reasons can include stress, a thyroid condition, blood sugar issues, high prolactin, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, under- or overweight, pregnancy, premature ovarian failure, and excessive exercise. Be sure to remain in contact with your doctor or healthcare professional to ensure that you’re not overlooking a bigger issue in your quest to overcome post-pill amenorrhea.

Related on EcoSalon
No, Really? What is Up with These Sanitary Pads?!
This Commercial is a Bloody Mess [Video]
Whoopi Goldberg Mixes Menstrual Relief with What?

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The FDA approved the first birth control pills for women over 50 years ago. Soon after, 1 million women were taking birth control pills and today over 80 percent of women will take them sometime during their reproductive cycle.

Birth control pills have changed the face of a women’s career, given women a voice, and controlled the population, but according to a recent study in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health, modernizing birth control pills may still be too political for 2013. In this day and age are we still putting conservative politics before science? Seriously?!

Politics play a major role in the number of choices for better birth control, including the monthly birth control pill. It’s a hurdle that scientists have been forced to deal with as they seek safer and more effective methods. In a recent paper, health experts urged scientists to study methods of birth control after sex, or beyond the 72 hour pill that’s already available. Currently, birth control pill methods are designed to work by keeping sperm and egg separate, but they can also be effective after the egg is fertilized.

“A woman could potentially use a post-fertilization method on a planned schedule only once in each menstrual cycle, no matter how many prior coital acts she had had in that cycle,” wrote the authors, reported on Inquisitr.

Political opposition has delayed the development of such an after-sex birth control pill from reaching the market, however.

“Every day in clinical practice, at least one woman tells me she has discontinued use of hormonal contraception because ‘the pill makes me go crazy!'” Dr. Ellen Wiebe, a clinician and professor of reproductive health at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who was not involved with the editorial, told LiveScience.

The ease of taking a monthly birth control pill is also a big plus for new research.

According to Bustle, “The problem, of course, is the politicians will likely jump to designate the scientifically feasible potential method as abortion.”

For many, the time for practical, non-political advancements are long overdue. We should be limited to the birth control pill that represented the only option for our mothers and grandmothers. It’s not the job of government to stand in the way of lifesaving contraceptives that allow women to make their own decisions about family planning. To deny us the best and safest that science has to offer, only continues to put women at risk.

Related on EcoSalon:
Dirty, Sexy Pill: A History of Birth Control 
Is Pulling Out a Safe Method of Birth Control?
How Green is the Birth Control Pill?

Image: M.Markus

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From STIs to unwanted children, protect ourselves we must. For the sustainability-inclined, natural birth control can be a complex maze to navigate. Eco-conscious people aren’t simply thinking about how an unwanted child might affect their own lives – they’re considering the broader implications of overpopulation, planetary wellness, and health. Since I know you’d rather skip the research and just get to getting busy, I’m going to break it all down for you.

Spring is in the air in the Northern Hemisphere: the ritual shedding of clothing has already begun. I’m not just talking about bikini-season here. Getting naked is good for you – experts say that sex has measurable health benefits, and hell, it definitely beats spin class. But for all its pleasure-inducing and blood-pressure-reducing side effects, copulation has definite consequences.

Contraception is a Human Right

For the last few years we’ve been dealing with a very real War on Women and a massive, retrograde assault on reproductive rights – in states all over the U.S., the pendulum has already begun to swing back to the 1950s. This is, in part, why it’s such an important moment for us to carefully assess the reproductive options we still have – and we must fight to keep them all. No matter what path to protecting yourself you end up choosing, remember that access to contraception is a human right.

Here is where it gets complicated – take the birth control pill. It revolutionized the lives of millions of women when it first became available in 1960, and for that, it’s worth celebrating. But if you care about the health of your body and the planet, you’ll want to closely examine what is actually in hormonal birth control, and what it does to the ecosystem of your body. It seems like hormonal contraception is a no-brainer for women in monogamous, heterosexual relationships. Your biggest concern is avoiding pregnancy, and you don’t want to have to think about barrier methods. Right? Perhaps not.

Hormonal contraceptives prevent pregnancy by tricking a woman’s body into a kind of chemical menopause. That, in itself, has consequences – it’s pretty clear that nature designed our bodies to menstruate for a reason. Aside from the laundry list of short-term dangers included on the package insert provided by Big Pharma (migraines, water retention, high blood pressure, breast swelling, spotting) use of the pill is linked with risk for strokes, breast and cervical cancer, and long-term infertility. Not to mention anecdotal evidence that it ironically lowers your sex drive – what is the point of birth control that makes you less libidinous? If that’s not enough for you, consider what hormonal contraceptives may be doing to the environment.

The endocrine-disrupting-chemicals (EDCs) in hormonal contraceptives leach into our water systems in a variety of ways. Women excrete them in their urine and unused packs end up in landfills. Synthetic estrogen, when dumped into the ecosystem, has similar properties to pesticides – it feminizes aquatic animals. Large-scale UK studies have shown that even low levels of estrogen in waterways caused reduced fertility in male fish. While pesticides from industrial agriculture remain the greatest threat to the environment, the very personal choice of birth control matters – both to your body and to the planet.

Although I believe that condoms are a terrific birth control method for people with multiple partners (those that don’t need to worry about STIs) unless you’re buying the right brand, you may be loading up landfills with waste that won’t biodegrade. Not to mention, many condom manufacturers use irritating, toxic lubricant.

In part two of this series, we’ll look at safer, healthier ways to make sure that your natural birth control choices are as green as your makeup routine.

Stefanie Iris Weiss is the author of Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable (Ten Speed Press/Crown Publishing, 2010) and eight other books. Stefanie keeps her carbon footprint small in New York City, where she writes about sustainability, sexuality, reproductive rights, dating and relationships, politics, fashion, beauty, and more for many publications. Learn more at ecosex.net and follow her on Twitter: @ecosexuality.

Image: starbooze

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A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

What a week it’s been for sex. We got to hear Rush Limbaugh apologize to “sluts” and it turns out everyone in your yoga class is doing it.

Here’s a few more sex statistics and facts for you this week:

Cost of a year’s supply of hormonal birth control: $160-$600

Average cost of a condom: <$1

Two: number of states that have eliminated their family planning programs within the last year

130,000: low-income Texan women who stand to lose Medicare-funded contraception and examination coverage as a result of the latest round of state budget cuts

$231 million: projected financial burden to state and federal taxpayers as a result of the 20,500 estimated additional babies that will be born as a result

1/4: women of reproductive age who receive health and contraceptive assistance through a publicly supported family planning center

51 to 48: vote on the Blunt Amendment, which failed to clear the Senate last week and would have allowed employers to withhold contraceptive coverage from employees’ health plans

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Rather than raise our voices, we girls at EcoSalon prefer to write about it, because if you need to scream, my guess is you aren’t so certain what you have to say is worth hearing.

And really, who wants to hear a grown woman roar?

In the past few months at EcoSalon, women have taken center stage with subjects ranging from brazen to, well, more brazen. If only we could change the world with our steadfast, unwavering commitment to talking about what matters.

Oh yeah, we are.

So what have we been discussing lately with regards to women? The question should be, what haven’t we?

We talked about getting older – why welcoming 30 and reaching for 40 with gusto is a reason to celebrate. Although with age comes the need to decide short versus long…hair, that is.

Is there ever a good time to talk about infertility? But we did. Then we tossed around the wild proposition that we don’t need a baby to feel happy and fulfilled. The horror! Which brings us to contraception and the dirty, sexy pill.

While we’re on the subject of sex, we want our cake, and to eat it too. I mean, why should we have to choose?

Speaking of choices, why are being pretty and smart mutually exclusive? We can have it all! Right?

Wrong. It’s time to face the cold, hard truth. Our fantasy lover is not showing up to sweep us off our feet, because he doesn’t exist. Reality checks can be so annoying.

And so is the office flirt who makes her way to the top using her sexy. But it seems she’ll pay the price once she gets there.

Sticks and stones – but names can be controversial. Gal, chick, girl, lady or ma’m? You decide.

And finally, it’s a relief to know that there are at least nine things we don’t need in order to be happy, and that after all this talk, a little silence and a good book can be a girl’s best friend.

Images: squacco, sleepishly, Vivian Chen, quinn.anya, Samdogs

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If you haven’t heard, there’s been a little thing called Health Care Reform buzzing around the country for the past couple years. Some laud it, others loathe it. Recent news out of Washington, D.C. may leave some women a little lighter in the wallet. The news is that women may soon be entitled to free contraception under heath care reform. Yes, this means free birth control pills, intrauterine devices, patches, and vaginal rings.

U.S. News and World Report Health shares that one studies shows “publicly-funded contraception saves taxpayers $4 for every $1 spent by preventing nearly 2 million pregnancies and 810,000 abortions every year.” Nonetheless, this move is already being met with opposition from the Catholic Church. John Haas is president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center. As he told The Huffington Post, “We think there are other ways to avoid having children than by ingesting chemicals paid for by health insurance.”

So there’s a chance birth control might soon be available to women as never before. As a feminist, I think this is fantastic news. As an environmentalist, this is a bit worrisome. We’ve already addressed the ecological impact of the Pill, noting that the flood of pill-caused estrogen into the water ways has negative, hormone-disrupting effects on wildlife. Not to mention, a flood of hormones can be toxic to your body.

But birth control has been around since the dawn of time, and earlier forms were all free of synthetic hormones. Here’s a nod to some of the ancient forms of contraception. (We’re not suggesting you use them. Just nod at them.)

Acacia Shrub

Ancient Egyptians used to grind up acacia, honey and dates to be inserted into their vaginas. The temperature of the body would then ferment the product into an early spermicide.

Lactation

Already have a baby? Lactation was considered a useful form of birth control in ancient Egypt. (It still is, thought it is not the most effective form.)

Animal-Membrane Condoms

In 19th century France, men used animal-membrane condoms. You may never look at a lamb the same way.

Lemon Juice

Marie Claire reports that the ancient women of Constantinople used sponges dipped in lemon juice. It is thought that sperm can’t survive in a highly acidic environment, so lemon acts as a sperm-killing agent. Studies have shown that it is not too kind to the uterus, either.

Queen Anne’s Lace

The use of Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) dates back to the late 4th or 5th century. Its seeds release a chemical that makes it difficult for a woman to carry a pregnancy.

Images: dhobern, hodac, kiwinz, kirstenloza, sneezypb

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It’s the end of June already, and the earth’s half-spin around the sun has brought us ladies plenty to wring our delicate little hands about. From Iranian clerics blaming earthquakes on our breasts to oil spills wreaking havoc on our pregnancies, 2010 has made us reach for the smelling salts on numerous occasions. Here at EcoSalon, we’ve covered women and the environment with vim, bringing you celebratory communiques alongside melancholic missives. Below, you’ll find a roundup of the news in 2010 thus far. If the past six months are any indication, the rest of the year will be a doozy. Feeling faint yet?

• Is GINK the new DINK? It used to be that childfree couples were called DINKs – Double Income, No Kids. But the great American greenwash has influenced reproductive choices as well, with an increasing number of couples citing the environment as a reason to go kidless. A recent study by Oregon State University added fuel to the fire, revealing that not having kids is 20 times more environmentally friendly than any other day to day green task, like recycling. Lisa Hymas of Grist coined the term GINK – Green Inclinations, No Kids – to describe childfree tree huggers like herself.

• Condoms came under attack earlier this year, with women’s health writers and scientists bemoaning the prophylactic’s sorry environmental record of sullying our beaches and clogging up our landfills. While greensters wondered whether condoms are biodegradable (likely not – their decomposable latex is mixed with human-made chemicals), we asked another question: why have this conversation in the first place? Condoms, as a blogger at EcoGeek noted, are “the single most important environmental innovation” ever, curbing environmentally-catastrophic population growth.

• Congress attacked killer chemicals this spring when members of the House and Senate introduced versions of the Safe Chemicals Act, a bill meant to fortify a toothless, decades-old law against allowing dangerous chemicals in household products (we all know how well that one worked…hello bisphenol-a). Uteruses in America rejoiced at the news: the Safe Chemicals Act is a boon to women, whose reproductive systems have been under siege by infertility-causing chemicals in water bottles and other plastics.

• In April, an Iranian cleric asserted that women who don’t cover up cause earthquakes. His declaration–meant to dissuade Iranian women from unveiling–ignited a response in the U.S., when blogger Jennifer McCreight organized a Boobquake, a day in which women wore low-cut tops without tectonic incident to prove the cleric wrong. But what could have been a bold political stunt turned into a ho-hum protest, with men egging on their breast-baring peers while feminists complained that the plight of Iranian women became fodder for a Girls Gone Wild spectacle.

• As if the earthquake itself didn’t cause enough damage, sexual violence rates spiked in Haiti in the months after the disaster. According to an article in Women’s eNews, aid workers in a major Port-au-Prince refugee camp fielded daily reports of rape, prompting the United Nations to send a special unit of 130 female Bangladeshi soldiers to address the violence. Lamentably, the post-disaster rape crisis was not unique to Haiti alone; many Hurricane Katrina survivors were similarly re-victimized.

• On the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, we noted that the pill’s invention by women’s rights crusader Margaret Sanger initiated the era of modern family planning, allowing women to choose the number and spacing of their children – a boon for their health and the health of their babies alike. But while the pill has done its part to keep our skyrocketing population in check (if you think things are bad, just imagine the world without it) its environmental record isn’t spotless – the hormones in the pill, excreted into waste water through urine, cause fatal mutations in fish populations.

• When a Houston tanning salon called upon the spirit of Coco Chanel to promote its new earth-friendly false tanning beet spray, we called foul. As legend has it, Chanel sparked the tanning craze in America when she stepped off a boat in Cannes with perfectly bronzed skin. Though Coco was a pioneering designer, breaching the boundary between menswear and womenswear, the tanning trendsetter didn’t galvanize women to leave the drudgery of housework in order to bask in the sunshine. Rather, Coco inadvertently created another unrealistic beauty standard.

• While much of the initial news surrounding the BP oil spill focused on the disaster’s effect on wildlife, we asked about its impact on human livelihoods. Coastal Women for Change, a community organization that sprung out of the post-Katrina haze to bring attention to the need for improved childcare in Biloxi, Mississippi, has stepped up after the spill by serving as a conduit for information from the Environmental Protection Agency to the local fishers. The biggest challenge? Getting fishers of different ethnic and economic backgrounds to rally together for their interests.

• Last year, journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn published their book Half the Sky, a groundbreaking tome arguing that international aid is more effective when directed toward women. While Kristof and WuDunn described women as the gatekeepers of health and well-being in their communities, they left out one green detail: the fact that women also hold the keys to conservation. In Indonesia, the Environmental Ministry has begun offering classes on water conservation to women in rural areas who are responsible for fetching and distributing water to their families.

• Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, but we all care equally about the earth, right? Wrong. According to several articles this year, men and women display their green pride differently, with men working for big picture sustainability while women, ever the quibblers, take on recycling and composting projects. We pointed out the ludicrousy in this theory, noting that a handful of anecdotes don’t constitute a trend. With all this talk about men, women, and their green differences, we lose sight of the why we should go green at all.

• As if the oil spill wasn’t dangerous enough, the chemical dispersants used to clean it up could spell health risks for pregnant mothers and their unborn children. According to information recently released by the Environmental Protection Agency, chemicals that caused health problems in the cleanup workers on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill are being used again today. Pregnant women have been advised to stay as far away from the contaminants as possible – a tall order for those women who actually live in the Gulf.

Image: xjyxjy

The post A Look Back at Women and the Environment in 2010 appeared first on EcoSalon.