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This practical and interactive guide shows women how to optimize their potential for health and well-being through in-depth information, self-assessment quizzes, and checklists to determine individual risk factors for common ailments and more serious diseases. Dr. Miriam Nelson shares the preventative measures that can be taken now to avoid such health problems down the road. From sexual and reproductive health to beauty, heart health, emotional well-being, bone and muscle health, and weight control, The Strong Women's Guide to Total Health offers a complete picture of the broad spectrum of issues that impact overall health. It is essential reading for women of all ages.
This practical and interactive guide shows women how to optimize their potential for health and well-being through in-depth information, self-assessment quizzes, and checklists to determine individual risk factors for common ailments and more serious diseases. Dr. Miriam Nelson shares the preventative measures that can be taken now to avoid such health problems down the road. From sexual and reproductive health to beauty, heart health, emotional well-being, bone and muscle health, and weight control, The Strong Women's Guide to Total Health offers a complete picture of the broad spectrum of issues that impact overall health. It is essential reading for women of all ages.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the book
1
Reproduction
The female reproductive system is an intricate and complex set of organs that carry out an amazing variety of tasks, from producing sex hormones to nurturing the miracle of new life. They include internal organs—ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina, and accessory glands—and also the vulva, which covers the opening to the vagina. A woman's main reproductive organs are two ovaries—each about the size and shape of an almond—located on either side of the uterus. Ovaries produce eggs (ova) and sex hormones. Over the course of a lifetime, they produce, store, and release about 450 eggs in a process known as ovulation.
Two slender 4-inch fallopian tubes, or oviducts, connect the ovaries with the uterus. The end of each tube near the ovary is funnel shaped and fringed with fingerlike extensions called fimbriae that draw the egg into the tube. When an egg is released from your ovary, the fimbriae catch it and help push it along the fallopian tube in its 7-day journey to the uterus. Because the egg is only fertile for about a day, fertilization occurs in the fallopian tubes before the egg moves to the uterus.
Your uterus, or womb, provides the fertilized egg with a nurturing, hospitable environment in which to grow. The uterus is a powerful, muscular organ, normally about the size and shape of an upside-down pear. Its 1-inch- thick muscular walls can expand to accommodate a full-term fetus and help push the baby out during labor. The lining of the uterus, known as the endometrium, is where a fertilized egg arriving from the fallopian tube embeds and develops. If the egg is not fertilized, it dries up and, roughly 2 weeks later, exits the body along with menstrual flow consisting of sloughed tissue from the endometrium.
Your uterus opens to your vagina at the cervix, a strong, thick-walled opening normally no wider than a straw but capable of expanding to allow the passage of a baby. Within the cervix are glands that secrete mucus. This mucus varies in consistency from tacky and sticky to thin and clear and either assists or impedes sperm, depending on the time of your cycle.
From the cervix, the vagina runs about 4 inches to the vaginal opening. A hollow, accordion-like muscular tube lined with mucous membranes that keep it moist, the vagina is where the erect penis is inserted during sexual intercourse. It also serves as the birth canal and as a passageway for menstrual flow from the uterus. The vagina expands during sexual arousal and, especially, during childbirth. The lower third of the vagina is laced with many nerve endings and includes the Grafenberg spot, or G-spot, a sensitive spot roughly the size of a dime, 2 to 3 inches up just past the pubic bone; for some women, it is an area of erotic sensitivity. During sexual arousal, small glands on either side of the vagina known as Bartholin's glands may also swell and lubricate the passage. The opening to the vagina is known as the introitus; at birth it may be partially covered with a membrane of tissue called the hymen. It was once thought that a torn hymen was evidence of sexual intercourse, but that's simply not true. A hymen can be easily stretched, abraded, or torn by physical activity, use of tampons, masturbation, and other activities.
Your external genitalia, also known as your vulva or pudendum, include the mons pubis, the fleshy area just above your vaginal opening; the labia majora and labia minora, the two skin flaps surrounding the vaginal opening, which help keep bacteria out of the vestibule of the vagina; and the clitoris, a highly sensitive structure rich in blood supply and nerves, which swells during sexual arousal. Your clitoris is the only part...
About the Author-
MIRIAM NELSON, PhD, is director of the Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition and associate professor of nutrition at Tufts University. JENNIFER ACKERMAN is a science and health writer whose most recent book, Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream, was named a New York Times Editors Choice.
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Harmony/Rodale
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