Due to the common use of assisted reproductive technology, twins and triplets are now subconsciously labeled “natural” or “unnatural.”

In Katharine Wroth’s Salon article about the questions people ask pregnant women, she expresses her outrage at continually being asked “Were you trying?” She thought it was not only too personal, but the answer potentially passed judgment on her relationship and lifestyle. The good news is that once she gives birth, this question will most likely disappear. As the mother of twins, there is a question I feel is far more invasive and offensive that begins with pregnancy and is more frequent after birth.

“Are they natural?”

It is universally the most-hated question asked of parents of multiples, followed closely by “You must have your hands full!” or “Better you than me.” In just three words, strangers pry into your method of conception – a private and intimate moment – and tack a label on your children. Using the term “natural” to describe children conceived without any help automatically conveys what the asker thinks of children who were conceived using assisted reproductive technology (unnatural).

What is an unnatural child, anyway? Am I really supposed to answer: Yes or no? It’s shocking that strangers and casual acquaintances think it’s appropriate to ask someone how their children were conceived. Although fertility treatments account for 77 percent of multiple births, many single children are born that way, too, yet I don’t see the same people marching up to everyone they meet and asking how their child was conceived. Whenever I am asked, I get the creepy feeling that the person is either picturing me in bed with my husband or in a gown and stirrups at a doctor’s office. I was raised to be polite, so as yet I haven’t asked that person how they conceived their own children – flat on their backs or in some other position? Maybe next time, I will.

I have seven friends with twins to whom I am close enough to know the circumstances of their origin. Out of our group, six sets (one mom has two sets) were conceived with no outside intervention, and three were the result of assistance. We have all been asked how our children came to be, and I’ve noticed that when the answer is that they were conceived naturally, the asker smiles and is supportive, commenting on how cute the children are. When the answer is that they were conceived with help, the asker usually replies, “oh,” rather flatly. Many parents report that they have resorted to lying or giving outrageous answers like “No, they’re plastic” or “We had sex twice in one night” in an attempt to end unwelcome conversations in the mall or at the supermarket.

My friend’s mother was talking the other day about a coworker’s daughter who had IVF and subsequently had triplets. She said, “Well, you get what you deserve.”

Exactly what do couples who have infertility issues deserve? The repeated disappointment of not being able to get pregnant, month after month, while watching their family and friends reproduce without issue? The devastation of miscarriages? The bone-deep, hollowed-out heartache of watching a fetus on an ultrasound that is not moving and has no heartbeat? Or, because they had the nerve to see a specialist and use fertility medications, they “deserve” multiples? Evidently, multiples are somehow a punishment.

Assisted reproduction has become more common now due to a variety of factors, and it is certainly discussed more often. Perhaps that’s why people feel that they can ask parents how their children came to be, however inappropriate it still is. While it’s more common, judging by the reactions, assisted reproduction is still looked down on by many. For some reason, having one child through assisted reproduction is a miracle, but having multiples that way is unnatural, even though having twins or triplets is always out of anyone’s control. One commenter on a twins blog said that he had “natural” twins, and felt they were special, whereas twins conceived through IVF were not.

Whether people are fascinated, admiring, or just plain nosy, the issue affects more than the parents – the kids can hear these comments, questions, labels and tone of voice, too. One mother posted a story about a woman who asked her if her triplets were “natural.” She then said, sympathetically, that the mother’s life must be so hard and how did she possibly do it? Later, her sad daughter asked the mother if she wished she had had only one child instead of three. I worry, too, that soon my two-year-old sons will want to know what “natural” means. That funny, irrepressible Ben and serious, cuddly Sam will wonder if they are a burden to me due to the thoughtlessness of others.

When people ask, “Do twins run in your family?” (the fraternal twin question to “Are they natural?”) in that I-would-shoot-myself-in-the-head-if-it-were-me voice, I tell them I’m adopted. Although they are asking for personal information, it seems that when they get some they don’t expect, people shut up – at least long enough for me to make a getaway. But what’s next? Perhaps they’ll want to know if I plan to find my “real” parents someday.

image: Angela Vincent

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BPA, or Biphensol A, has become the scourge of environmentalists and health advocates. And rightly so – the chemical has been used for over forty years and is found in nearly everything made of plastic. From bottles, to children’s toys, to the lining of tin cans and even the coating of sales receipts, this chemical was long considered safe by the FDA. Then studies started showing up proving the government wrong.

Just how does BPA harm you? As Time reported, “the chemical has been linked to neurological disorders, hormonal disruptions, cancer and genital abnormalities in newborn boys.” Now studies have turned their attention to its influence on fertility, as lab animals showed side effects such as infertility.

Ah, yes, fertility. It seems like you can’t open a web browser these days without someone wringing their hands over the state of women’s reproductive abilities. (We’ve previously discussed fertility drugs and misconceptions about this topic.) Do we really need another discussion over the state of women’s reproductive skills? Won’t someone think of the (unborn) children?

Based on the recent news out of medicine covering the dangerous effect of BPA on fertility – yes, we do. As Time reports, extensive studies were conducted in 2007 and 2008 at the University of San Francisco to see if BPA had an impact on fertility and IVF by studying women who were undergoing the procedure. It turns out, it does. Scientists think that BPA damages the quality of eggs in women. They found that higher blood levels of BPA, they found, were linked to a “50% reduction in normal fertilization of eggs after they were retrieved for IVF.”

Further, BPA may damage sperm. Via The Daily Green, Kaiser Permanente recently published a report that BPA can reduce sperm count and mobility in men. BPA mimics estrogen in the body which would account for its negative influence on sperm. Experts conclude that more studies will be necessary to look at this connection. But in the light of this evidence, one wonders why Congress recently refused to ban BPA from baby products.

The good news? While regulations seem to rise and fall regarding the permanent disuse of this chemical, people are starting to listen to its dangers. Even the government has released a warning on how to reduce you and your children’s exposure to the chemical.

And until BPA is banned permanently, there are some easy ways to avoid BPA. Lose the plastic bottles and containers in your home. And if you must go plastic, avoid plastics with recycling codes 3 and 7. They are more likely to contain BPA. Also, lose any plastic containers that are scratched. This is an easier route for the BPA to leech into your system.

Image: stevendepolo

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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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Five years ago, a group of women’s health advocates met with scientists in California to discuss creeping infertility rates among men and women. Between 1995 and 2002, the number of couples having problems conceiving had grown from 6.1 million to 7.3 million. That meant that one out of every eight heterosexual couples was infertile, according to Center for Disease Control data.

Women’s health advocates and scientists had long known that environmental contaminants like cigarette smoke and mercury were major culprits when it came to diminished fertility. But what brought the two groups together for the first time was alarming evidence that commonplace material, such as plastics, could damage the reproductive system.

Sounds like old news, right? We’ve all fretted over bisphenol-a, a chemical found in plastic bottles that caused hormonal changes in animals in lab tests, and we all kvelled when in 2008 Nalgene opted to stop using the plastic in its camping wares. But while our attention has shifted to the next environmental catastrophe du jour, those pesky chemicals haven’t gone anywhere.

Last week, lawmakers in both houses of Congress introduced the Safe Chemicals Act, a bill meant to up the ante when it comes to chemical testing in the United States. If made into law, the bill will fortify the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, a weak attempt at federal regulation. As RH Reality Check contributor Jennifer Rogers notes, the “TSCA was already outdated before it was signed into law. Many dangerous chemicals were ‘grandfathered in’ under the new law and remain in use today. Many new chemicals remain unregulated because the legislation was limited in scope.”

According to EHS Today, a trade publication for environment, health, and safety workers, the TSCA’s greatest weakness is its inability to stop dangerous chemicals from entering the market. “Under current policy, the [Environmental Protection Agency] can call for safety testing only after evidence surfaces demonstrating a chemical is dangerous. As a result, EPA has been able to require testing for just 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals currently registered in the United States and has been able to ban only five dangerous substances.”

The new bill would require manufacturers to provide information to the EPA about chemicals currently in circulation as well as those headed for the market. And while some environmental groups want even stricter regulations, women’s health groups say the bill is a small, yet serious step, toward curbing infertility due to pollutants. We’ll drink (out of a glass bottle) to that.

Image: Michelle Schantz (Schantzilla)

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Dr. Northrop believes that menstruation is a time for women to let go of all of their emotional junk for the month. It is a clearing out time, and a time for letting go. Dr. Northrop also believes that peri-menopause is also a time for women to complete many of our lifelong issues – that it is a time to really listen to our bodies and ourselves.

The problem is that most of us don’t really listen to our bodies. We don’t allow a time for physically turning in during menstruation. We often do not slow down – and take the time to listen to what our bodies are telling us. And some of us chemically alter our bodies through birth control pills – so we don’t even get the opportunity to tune into the wisdom of our bodies-because we alter the cycles. Often there is no menstruation for women on the pill. Menstruation is seen as something to avoid instead of nature’s way of letting us take stock of where we are, and then letting go.

For those of us struggling with infertility – menstruation can also be a reminder of failure. A sign of loss, instead of a chance to begin again with something fresh. We begin to view our menstruation as something awful and full of pain.

I have begun to tune into my body in a new way. So much of how we manage the cycles of our bodies is how we frame things in our minds. So, instead of thinking about menstruation as an inconvenience or a marker of some kind of failure – try thinking of that time of the month as a meditation of the mind and body. A spring cleaning that our bodies gift us with to renew our spirits and start fresh. Perhaps if we made time to rest during our menstruation and to take long walks instead of powering through our menstruation and ignoring it – we would gain great wisdom from our bodies.

Article by Pamela Madsen for DivineCaroline. First published January 2010.

Related DivineCaroline posts:

Image: Dmitry Skurnyagin

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Perfluorochemicals (PFC), found in many common household items, have been linked to female infertility in a recent Danish study. Research has shown that PFC is toxic to the liver, immune system and reproductive organs. In this case, it looks like infertility is nature’s way of saying “Your environment is way too poisonous to sustain healthy life – this is not the time or place to reproduce the species.”

The most common PFC-containing items are nonstick pans, the grease-resistant coating on microwave popcorn bags, and water and stain repellent products – namely Teflon, Scotchgard, Gore-Tex and Stainmaster.

Cosmetics, moisturizers and even dental floss contain PFC, too. Look for ingredients containing “perfluoro” or “fluoro.” Of special concern is the fact that the most toxic type of PFC has a very long half life and will be in our environment (and absorbing into our bodies) for years to come.

Better living through chemistry?

Image: mahalie

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