Semiotics

Women make up more than half the population and they have health problems that are gender specific. Gender bias has held women back from living a long but unhealthy life. Although statistically women do live longer, they are not living at their maximum health potential due to limited resources and research with regards to their personal health. While attentiveness of the health troubles that women face is on the rise, consideration given to women's health is still in its early years and it needs to change. The most obvious is women reproductive health, and secondly a very questionable factor is how women and society in general allowed the medicalization of their bodies to happen.

Medicalization of Women's bodies

"Medicalization is a process that occurs when health practitioners treat 'natural' body functions as if they were pathology, which is something abnormal. (Manual) Recent medicine (the profession and the industry) is not only a scientific project but mostly a collective one. It does not seem right that natural bodily experiences are being viewed as symptoms. This is all going on because of greed and the need for profit as the medical physicians becomes more accepted and doctors are simply looking for new markets for their services.

Medicalization is damaging since it treats women's body parts as distinct bits and pieces that encompass no relation to one another. Medicalization is supported by the medical model of disease causation which assumes that illness is caused by a precise and particular agent such as a bacterium or a virus that has invaded the body. (Rothman, Manual) A woman's body can literally be dismembered and discussed in ways that entirely destroy the woman herself and what she has experienced. (Warshaw, Manual) The idea of medicalized natural bodily events can be traced back to the seventeenth century and the recognition of the Cartesian philosophy who likened the human body to a machine which could be taken apart and reassembled if its structure and functions broke down. (manual)

It is difficult to acknowledge that it seems that these days a person cannot be sick without a doctor's approval. Not only is physical health of women under the watchful eye of scientific and political processes, but mental health is also defined by the medical field. Mental health is the most important amongst women when looking at reproduction.

Post Partum Depression

Postpartum Depression is a serious disease that affects as many as 60 percent of new mothers. The new mother's may not sense love for their newborn and may have no energy to take care of the child. They often feel at fault and insignificant because they know that they should not feel this way. There is no set model for what type of women is most likely to be affected by Postpartum Depression;

"It is worth nothing, however that a focus on the importance of social support for mothers can lead to the blaming of fathers, which is no more helpful than the blaming of individual mothers for their depression. While some fathers do fail to provide adequate support to their partners and their children, the social and financial context must be acknowledged here as elsewhere. " (Lee, 1999)

Having a baby is a joyous time for most women. After childbirth, though, many mothers feel miserable, scared, annoyed or nervous. Most new mothers have these emotions in a mild form called postpartum blues. Sometimes these feelings are called "baby blues". Postpartum depression is significantly more serious than 'baby blues' and the symptoms are more constant. Barnett and Gotlib have suggested that the distinction is one of degree rather than type and that postpartum depression is diagnosed while the mild dysphoria fails to resolve itself or becomes more serious over time. (Lee, 1999)

Physical and emotional changes take place in a woman when she is pregnant and after she gives birth. When these thoughts do not go away and when a woman's ability to function is affected, a woman may be diagnosed with postpartum depression. If a woman does not seek out treatment, symptoms may exacerbate and the depression may last for as long as a year. New mothers require practical help as well as emotional support, as caring for a small child is demanding and exhausting.

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