Breast cancer and all reproductive cancers impact all of us. Even with enhanced and more effective detection and treatment options, the numbers are mind-numbing - over one in eight women will be diagnosed this year.

One of the most common problems that bring long-term couples into therapy is that of initiating intimacy. According to Rachel Sussman, a marriage counselor in New York City, one of the most common reasons that couples come to couples therapy is differing sex drives and opinions on how to initiate sex.

Glance down the feminine hygiene aisle of any pharmacy or grocery store and you’ll find numerous products designed to freshen, clean and cover up the natural smell of the female body. Although it’s well known that the practice of douching – spraying liquid into the vaginal canal in an effort to make it cleaner or to feel fresher – is unhealthy, feminine product manufacturers keep coming...

I have always preferred the company of children in my life. They speak the truth. They are present and awake to life in a way that seems to slip away as we become adults. Somewhere around the time when we become conscious of being seen, we lose the freedom to see what is actually happening around us. 

The modern-day woman has a lot of things to juggle. Between taking names at work and balancing friendships, family, and romantic relationships, the last thing we need to be worried about is our vaginal health. What you may not know is that while you’re balancing your outer life, there is a lot going on inside your body in order to make sure that you stay healthy. 

I am often speechless these days. It is hard to trust the words I have known to convey what it is like to go on living since my son Ian has left. My writer self, like the rest of me is cast out beyond the language that I once was able to use so effortlessly. Grief has swallowed not only my ability to express what is happening inside and around me, but often even the will to try.

It seems like everyone is using coconut oil these days, and not just for sauteing veggies. With seemingly limitless uses for health and beauty, what was once a humble pantry staple has become the latest all-purpose health food of the moment. But as with any explosive health and beauty trend, there comes a point when things can get taken a little too far. 

One of the most significant gaps between genders when it comes to love and sex is the truism that male energy opens to love through sexual connection and female energy is more apt to need love to ignite its sexuality. I remember well a conversation I had with another mother at the playground years...

I was out recently with a friend, and we started talking about sex. She told me about how, in her current relationship, she wants sex more often than her boyfriend does. We laughed about how this never would have happened when we were in our twenties. “We’re in our sexual prime now,” she said, and we laughed again.

There are some who would say that the idea of equality is nothing more than an aspirational declaration. They argue that the truth of meritocracy it is at the root of human evolution. What drives progress more than the individual’s drive for more?

When we consider the efforts that women have made over generations for equality, it humbles you. Today while interviewing the president of Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon, I learned that the early beginnings of the organization began with women sewing diaphragms that they procured in Italy and Japan into their petticoats. Many women were arrested when they were handing them out on the streets in New York. 

A healthy vagina has a pH level between 3.8 and 4.5, which falls on the acidic side of the pH scale. This acidic vaginal environment is protective, and helps prevent unhealthy bacteria and yeast from multiplying too quickly, which can lead to infection. A higher vaginal pH level (above 4.5) provides the perfect environment for unhealthy bacteria to grow, which puts you at risk for infections and inflammation.