Precautions for Women to Stay Healthy

Submitted by Loring A. Windblad on December 22, 2009

Women’s health is of great concern the world over and is one of the parameters of the development of a society. Women’s health differs from general health because of the additional ability of women to bear children and also because of their biological structure during and after their reproductive years. In developing countries, women’s health issues range from sanitation to proper nutrition for a mother and child. In developed countries, women’s health includes these but additionally also encompass some of the women-specific health problems that include STDs, pelvic and uterine diseases, and post-menopausal issues. Therefore it can be stated that reproductive health issues are the differentiating as well as the focus areas of women’s health.

The standard number of problems and issues that a woman has to address from birth to death starts with the most common facet – the menstrual cycle. This is a regular feature of women, every month, during their reproductive years. From a dietary perspective, all that a woman needs to do during the week of her period is to be as nourished as possible to compensate for tissue and blood loss.

This can be achieved by a high dairy intake and green vegetable intake. Dairy is actually useful for dysmenorrhea because of the progesterone content in milk.

Keeping vaginal infections at bay from a purely dietary perspective again requires an intake of dairy products for its content of lactobacilli and also the regular intake of garlic which is a natural antibiotic.

During a woman’s reproductive years, it is almost inevitable that a cyst could develop in the ovaries. There is very little that diet can do for this part of reproductive health but regularly supplementing natural hormones with dairy and nuts like flax and almonds are of great help.

In the post-menopausal period, the withdrawal of estrogen and progesterone levels is a problem that causes many physiological aberrations. The most common place among these is osteoporosis.

When estrogen levels come down, so does the body’s ability to keep calcium content in bones. This leads to brittle bones susceptible to fractures. Preventing this involves ensuring that the dairy and nut intake is high as well as a healthy amount of calcium is ingested.

Again, this is easily available in dairy products. Beyond these factors, it is important to not eat a very fatty diet as this can disrupt hormonal influences. Therefore, eat right and stay fit – this is essential to women’s health.