How hormones affect you before, during and after pregnancy: "You are not crazy, they are estrogens"

Designated in 2019 as the best endocrine in Spain, Dr. Clotilde Vázquez likes to laugh.I check it throughout the interview, on the occasion of the publication of her book, with hormones and crazy (Vergara).However, this doctor in Medicine from the Autonomous University of Madrid takes very seriously the universe of hormones and their effects - in women, especially - throughout life.Because hormones: "The secretion product of certain glands that excite, inhibit or regulate the activity of other organs or organ system," as the SAR defines them, are key to well -being.

Its role is also crucial during motherhood: they influence the desire to have children and are fundamental during pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and parenting.This stage has one of its culminating points with the hormonal outbreak of teenage children when, paradoxically, more and more mothers enter menopause.To this key period of women's life is dedicated to Dr. Vázquez's book, a reference in the matter.

Let's start at the beginning: with the desire to be a mother.Many define it as something "inexplicable", which assaults them, suddenly, one day ... do hormones intervene in this desire?

To launch into motherhood there is a cultural condition, of course, but there is also a biological component.And, although it is not yet studied, which drives you at the biological level, we know that as the ovary matures and reaches its fullness (that is, the secretion of progesterone and estrogen is good), that maternal sense increases.Of course, in animals it is clear.

Pregnancy implies very important hormonal changes: how do they influence this state?

The main protagonist in pregnancy is progesterone, a hormone that makes the beginning of pregnancy more nausea, for example, but has a very good part, which is that it gives a state of well -being, sleep, peaceful ... afterchildbirth, low progesterone but if there is breastfeeding, the relay takes oxcitocin, which is a wonderful hormone.That is why breastfeeding, when it goes well, is so pleasant.

After childbirth, if there is breastfeeding, oxytocin is triggered, which is a wonderful hormone ”

In fact, there are women who say they have orgasms when breastfeeding.Can be?

Yes, yes, in natural, sexual orgasms, there is a piquito of oxcitocin.And, indeed, the baby's suction causes oxcitocin synthesis and produces a pleasure that can be similar to orgasm: not so intense but more continued.There are women who tell you as something wonderful and I believe that this feeling is also linked to that very prolonged lactation hitch, which sometimes distort the life of a couple.But the woman there finds a lot of happiness!

Today there is a cult, almost, towards breastfeeding.What happens if it doesn't work?How is that oxcitocin replaced?

With all tranquility, giving him a bottle and feeling good for it.I think it is essential to discuss women who cannot or do not want to breastfeed, but there is a brutal Talibanism with this issue.And it is true that natural breastfeeding is the best, but you can raise a perfectly healthy and happy child with a bottle.

We are not 'crazy'

Hormones influence our mental health, explains Dr. Vázquez: “There is a relationship.That is why hormonal oscillations have such an impact on emotions and sensations, whether of sadness, irritability or pleasure. ”However, many women do not know the role of hormones in these emotional goals and low, which can even make us question our mental health."That is why I am interested in disseminating: so that we are aware that we are not crazy! But we are in a phase of hormonal changes."

I Literally Know Nothing.My 11 Year Old Just Taught Me How To Take A Photo While on Facetime.Like am i really that Old?

— Ms. Miyagi Thu Jun 03 00:45:00 +0000 2021

Hormones play a key role in fertility treatments?

Yes, to stimulate first and then maintain ovulation, there are many hormones, so the woman is in tremendous hypersensitivity.Most swell, have very rare sensations and some are very bad.Having a child is a desire of two but the one who suffers it is the woman.

In childbirth, hormones also play an important role ...

Yes, here oxcitocin is essential to start, and on many occasions, when the baby is delayed, they are told to be stimulated or with their partner, so that oxcitocin is generated.Sometimes, childbirth has to be induced but what is put on is a preparation of this hormone.

Having a child is a desire of two but the one who suffers it is the woman "

Are postpartum depression linked to sudden hormonal changes?

Sometimes, before quarantine ends, there has been such a decrease in hormones that causes, in women who have a greater sensitivity to that hormonal descent, there may be a period of sadness.But if this is aggravated or if it is predisposed genetically (women who have had serious postpartum depressions say that their mothers also had them), you have to ask for help.Anyway, not having a depression yet, this is a period in which women need support, because after having been in this fantastic hormonal environment, you can feel strange, without energy.Until ovulation or breastfeeding begin and sufficient oxcitocin occurs, it can be very hard.

An experience of this type can mark a parenting: where would the limit between normal and postpartum depression be?

I have met women who spend the day crying and receive types type "but with this baby cute, how can you be like that?"You have to think that it is normal to be tired but, as soon as the woman notices that she has no energy, that she cannot with the situation and that she does not want to see anyone or is crying all day ... that is a red flag and, beforePass another minute, you have to consult.And put treatment.

Mention the word energy: What influence do hormones have in it?

A hormonal balance is essential to have it.In menopause, among women who have a more abrupt decrease in estrogens, extreme tiredness and insomnia are suffered.The premenstrual situation also causes many women to notice a lack of energy, impulse, apart from sadness and irritability, which can be maximum.

Is there premenstrual syndrome?Isn't it an invention of patriarchy?

Yes, it exists, and the most intelligent thing is to know and know it and see what things can relieve it to live better.Now, it is true that it is used as a weapon against women.

After motherhood, it seems that hormones give us a truce, is that so?

In general, between thirty and forty and long years - even fifties, even - there is a quite stable ovarian maturity period.Within every 28 days hormones rise and go down: those days before the rule in which you do not support your children to your partner, the world in general ... in premenstrual phase, measure the estrogens and see that you have 20 micrograms while, in the peak, there are 600, 800 ... normality is a certain hormonal roller coaster and look at the power that will have this in our lives.

Menopause, a 'catastrophic' moment

The book of Dr. Vázquez, with hormones and crazy is dedicated to menopause, an authentic looping of this hormonal roller coaster."I had a quite early menopause and I was lucky that I treated it, without discussion, but when you begin to hear women who repeat you: 'It was fine until menopause' ... you realize that it is a catastrophic moment for women inThe one that is a lot of disorientation. ”Menopause is a biological process in which the ovary ceases to release ovules and a lower amount of estrogen and progesterone occurs.In cases, fulminantly.“It's as if you had abrupt hypothyroidism: suddenly your thyroid, zero.But they tell you that 'you have to endure' and ... no!You have to treat it why it affects you for the rest of your life, which is now very long. ”

Menopause also marks family life, a couple, at work ...

Throughout.Apart from insomnia, suffocation, migraines, emotional and weight changes, tiredness, there is either libido.But in men, unless they suffer a disease, the decline is later and gradual.Its testosterone production, for example, goes down from 65-70 years.While many women, simply, 'can't live', they tell you that way.

How is it solved?

In my book I detail the solutions that exist, the main, hormonal treatment.As I say, with fourth and half of estrogen a radical change is made (laughs).Is incredible!Because menopause, as Dr. Casquet says in the prologue of the book, is not a lack of self -esteem or empty nest syndrome: menopause is that you have no estrogen and period.

Menopause is that you have no estrogen and period "

Because motherhood is delayed, today the usual is not 'the empty nest' but the menopausal mother and the hyper teenagers, attacked by excess hormones: how to deal with this paradox?

What helps to mitigate those brutal outbreaks that the kids have (yes, they are shoots) is sport, physical activity.To climb endorphins and spend energy, because that excess of testosterone in the boys and estrogen, in general, of the girls, causes them to have plenty of energy.While mothers, women, have to ask for help to balance, because they suffer otherwise: a hormone downturn.

Why are there misgivings about substitute hormonal therapy?

Why there has been a lot of misinformation and two biased works that have done a lot of damage, which related it to breast cancer.But I swear that I have read the small print of all these studies and I assure you hormonal therapy or prevent or increase the risk of breast cancer.And, although there is a lot of cancer of this type, from the age of 50, women die, above all, infarction: and that risk does greatly increase due to the estrogen deficit that occurs in menopause.