[font size=15]Ladybud[font color=darkred]•[/font][/font]
[font color=gray]Classin' up the joint[/font]
Feb 25, 2014


[font size=1]IMAGE: “Daydream,” Andrew Wyeth[/font]

Women have long kept their health lore confined to their close female communities. Until the late 19th century, birthing was the domain of women and they carried this, as well as other women’s health knowledge, forward. Natural birth control (often herbs) had to keep secret. There is lore that women once segregated themselves at the time of menses, and there in seclusion they found comfort from and companionship with other women.

Before scopolamine and epidurals, ibuprofen and anti-depressants, women likely used Cannabis and many other botanical medicines for pain in labor as well as for a host of other female issues.

There are written records dating back to 3000 BCE indicating the use of Cannabis for treating female health issues such as migraine, nausea and vomiting of pregnancy, augmenting labor, hemorrhage, heavy menses, uterine pain and contractions, “sore breasts,” to enhance milk flow, gonorrhea, urinary tract infections, easing painful menstrual cramps, assisting in long labors and for “melancholia” (what we know as PMS?).

Many of these therapeutic uses of Cannabis were included in the Dispensatory of the United States (Wood and Bache 1854) where it was referred to as “Indian hemp.” All parts of the plant were used: orally, inhaled, intra-nasally, juiced, topically, vaginally, and rectally.

These historical uses have been some what explained by contemporary science elucidating the endocannabinoid system (eCS). This system functions in the reproductive tissues (as well as most other tissue in the human body), where it plays a role in ovulation, implantation, development of the embryonic nervous system, in the contractile fibers of the uterus, endometrial tissue, and in the bladder and lower urinary tract. The endocannabinoid anandamide (AEA) is present in breast milk; levels of AEA fluctuate across the female cycle, and have been shown to elevate during ovulation and labor.

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