Premenstrual Disorders

Women in the early 1880s:

and her three children attended a local high school. She and her husband enjoyed their neighborhood and local church. Her yard was filled with beautiful flowers inside its white picket fence, and she loved her family’s friendly small dog. Life seemed good . . . except lately Maryann had noticed she had more bad days than good ones. While out to lunch with a friend from work, she commented that she only had about one week a month when she felt really good. Her friend laughed in agreement—but Maryann knew her friend did not have as much trouble with PMS symptoms as she did. Because of a particularly stressful few months at work and the upcoming graduation of her daughter, Maryann felt even more tense. She found herself unable to sleep night after night. When she did sleep, about once a month she would wake up with a scream that startled the whole family. She dreamed again and again that someone entered her bedroom and stood over her bed. Until recently, our culture thought that women’s primary job was to produce and raise children. Women’s ailments were not taken seriously. With the advent of the women’s movement in the twentieth century, however, all that began to change. For the first time, scientists began to research the female body. As a result, our culture—and women themselves—have new respect and understanding for the monthly cycle all women experience. • had seven or eight children. • breast-fed each one for twelve to eighteen months as a way to prevent another pregnancy as long as possible (a form of birth control that is not always effective). • experienced menopause near the age of forty. • usually lived no longer than their late forties (often because their bodies were worn out from childbearing).

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