The Ultimate Guide to Getting Pregnant
April 4, 2005
Hormones, those "minute quantities of chemicals that run throughout your bloodstream," can rule a woman's life. When hormones are perfectly balanced, a woman will feel "at her peak," mentally and physically. When they're out of balance, she may feel moody, lethargic, forgetful, uncomfortable or even sick. Hormone specialist and practicing OB/GYN Greene wrote the foreword for Suzanne Somers's bestselling book on bioidentical hormone replacement, The Sexy Years. He isn't against hormone therapy (if that's what it takes to achieve balance, "it should definitely be considered"), but he also believes hormonal imbalances can often be corrected by changes in diet, exercise and lifestyle habits or alternative approaches (e.g., mind-centering techniques, vitamins, herbs, etc.). His book is a solid mix of technical explanation and easy-to-follow advice, as he explains the hows and whys of hormones, and then offers copious suggestions for dealing with common problems, like skin aging, hot flashes, dizziness, mood swings, migraines, low libido and poor memory. Charts, sidebars, case studies and questionnaires will help readers get even more out of this helpful guide.
February 18, 2008
Greene is a fertility specialist, reproductive endocrinologist, obstetrician, gynecologist and hormone researcher, so his patients struggling with infertility, he says, are often surprised when, instead of suggesting state-of-the-art, expensive fertility treatments, he advocates changes in diet and lifestyle. Greene offers plenty of case studies to prove that his plan can work where assisted reproductive technologies fail. He believes that, in many cases, unexplained infertility is caused by imbalanced hormones. Improper diet, lack of exercise and stress can cause the body's hormones to go out of whack. With a dietary overhaul (drastically reduce animal products and go organic for starters), prenatal supplements and the addition of yoga or other stress reducers, Greene has been able to make many couples' dreams of having a baby come true. Greene points out that many other factors can affect fertility (exposure to extreme heat, toxic chemicals or bike riding on a hard seat, for example) and offers tips to improve your chances of conceiving. This book is a must-read for couples having difficulty getting pregnant.