Book Review: Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing.

Book Review: Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing

Revised edition, 1998, by Christiane Northrup, MD, 906 pages

Christiane Northrup is the pioneering physician who addresses women's healthcare from the mind-body medicine perspective popularized in the 1990s by such authors as Deepak Chopra. Originally trained in conventional Western medicine and obstetrics, she now promotes a wholistic approach to reproductive health based on emotional, mental, spiritual, societal, as well as physical factors.

Northrup describes the often negative cultural beliefs that influence both how medicine is practiced, and how women are taught to care for their own bodies. These societal influences include a disregard for the perspective and experience of women, and an overemphasis on technology and pathology in healthcare.

She then describes the science and philosophy of the mind-body connection, in contrast to conventional allopathic healthcare. Northrup explains how the systems of the body, including the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems, have an exquisite physical response to emotional and environmental stressors, which can contribute to health or illness.

Professionals and students of the natural childbirth field will be familiar with the importance of the mind-body connection as it relates to relaxation and empowerment in labor and birth. Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom applies similar concepts to the broad spectrum of women's lifelong reproductive and sexual health concerns.

Northrup discusses the health issues specific to the lives and bodies of women, along with the societal and emotional influences she has observed to be associated with certain health problems. She details conditions of the menstrual cycle, uterus, vulva, cervix, breasts, and ovaries, and the corresponding circumstances of women's lives and relationships that can affect the wellness of our physical systems.

In addition to offering medical and nutritional approaches to healing a range of illnesses, Northrup advocates that women review the status of their relationships, obligations to others, unresolved childhood trauma, opportunities for creative expression, and what society has taught them about their value as women, as factors in their conditions.

When it comes to her observations on childbearing, Northrup says, "women labor as they live," referring to the coping mechanisms each woman uses in her daily life, as well as the influences of the environment around her, which are then brought forth in her birth experience. She exposes the emergency view of birth in which obstetricians are trained, as well as other stressors that can affect laboring women individually, such as a history of abuse.

Her emphasis here is firmly on reclaiming the power of birth, the benefits of natural childbirth and labor support, and the need for a reduction in routine medical interventions. As an obstetrician herself, however, she does not fully arrive at an understanding of the midwifery model and homebirth as the historical standard of woman-centered care.

Overall in this book, Northrup's contribution is unique and her explanations thorough, from the vantage point of a conventionally trained physician who went on to cultivate an equal amount of expertise in, and passion for, the healing power of women's own wisdom.

Readers may order Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom from the ALACE Bookstore for $17.95 plus shipping and handling. For ordering information, see page 27.