Lindsay M

The foot drop thing happened to me too! During both of my deliveries! Both times I had an epidural, and both times I lost dosiflexion in my feet and could barely walk after. It was more severe with my first delivery, and pretty mild in my second. I was told that it’s not a direct result of the epidural, but more that during labor you might spend an extended amount of time in a position that compresses a nerve but not realize it because you have an epidural.

The first time it happened it was terrifying because no one could tell me if it was going to be a permanent complication or just a short term annoyance. It ended up getting 100% better within a few weeks. And the second time within only a few days.

My first pregnancy was a miscarriage, and I suspected low progesterone (I wasn’t testing at home like you were, but I did consistently have a 9-10 day luteal phase which made me suspect low progesterone). I was suspicious that the loss might be related to the low progesterone and convinced my doctor to prescribe progesterone supplements. My next conception was a successful pregnancy. However …

I started looking more into the research around progesterone supplementation and pregnancy loss, and I realized that it was not very convincing. If I remember correctly, there was a small effect only in women with 3 or more consecutive losses. When I started trying for my second child, I opted not to go on progesterone supplementation, and I was able to get pregnant just fine and it was not a loss.

This is all 100% anecdotal of course, but since I was in a similar situation as you I figured I’d share!

I was diagnosed with severe postpartum preeclampsia 3 days after giving birth and re-admitted to the hospital after having initially been discharged. I did not have any high blood pressure during pregnancy at all. Does the book include information specifically on postpartum preeclampsia?

Also, I know with preeclampsia in general, the long term risk for CVD is higher. And yet, in the 6 years since my preeclampsia, no doctors have ever proactively suggested any kind of extra testing or screening and when I bring it up, they’re not sure what to say and there doesn’t seem to be any standard recommendation that I can refer to. Does the book talk about how the increased long term risk after pregnancy complications like preeclampsia should be handled?

Question for Gillian Goddard on the bioidentical hormone article: most of what I hear about bioidentical hormones is actually about synthetic progestins vs bioidentical progesterone, but the article didn’t cover this. For example, in this article on CEMCOR (https://www.cemcor.ca/resources/progesterone-not-progestogenprogestin%E2%80%94-it%E2%80%99s-estrogen%E2%80%99s-unique-biological-partner):

“Progesterone is a hormone integral to women’s whole reproductive system and is essential in the milieu of an adult woman. Progesterone works in partnership with estradiol in every system, tissue and cell. However, sometimes progesterone and progestogens have opposite effects! For example, progesterone acts in breast cells to decrease estrogen-related cell growth/proliferation and to make cells more mature [2]. We only recently learned this—activation of the progesterone receptor by progesterone in breast cells decreases the proliferation that is normally produced by stimulation of the estrogen receptor [3]. Progesterone’s breast actions through the progesterone receptor have breast cancer-reducing effects. The opposite is true for medroxyprogesterone, the progestogen most closely chemically related to progesterone. When medroxyprogesterone is used in combination with estrogen, this treatment increases breast cancer risk [4]. Sufficient research now combined shows that progesterone with estrogen treatment significantly decreases menopausal women’s risk for breast cancer compared to progestogens with estrogen therapy [5](Asi et al. Systematic Reviews (2016) 5:121 DOI 10.1186/s13643-016-0294-5 2016). It turns out that medroxyprogesterone acts in breast cells through a glucocorticoid rather than through the progesterone receptor; stimulation of that stress hormone receptorincreased the breast cell proliferation that, with estrogen, increased breast cancer risk [6].”

I have no idea if this source is legit or not, but curious about your take on the whole synthetic vs bioidentical topic when it comes to progesterone.

Came here to say the same thing about FAM. I’m 38, done having kids, and have been using FAM as contraception successfully for the last 3 years. Every other available contraceptive has significant downsides for me, and I’m at a point in my life where an accidental pregnancy wouldn’t be catastrophic, so the method makes a lot of sense to me. I’m sure there are others in my position, especially among ParentData readers, many of whom became well practiced in FAM when they were trying to conceive.

I was an athlete in my late teens and early 20s and had hypothalamic amenorrhea for ~10 years during that time. Will this have any implications for when I start perimenopause?