Progesterone nation

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Already the second generation of women in our country "sits" on progesterone. Meanwhile, Western studies show that there is no “conserving” therapy in early pregnancy, as well as there are no effective drugs for this.

In our country, at least one generation has already been "grown" on progesterone, which continues to "swallow" the same progesterone while carrying their children. Nowhere in the world is there such a craze for this hormonal drug, and many foreign doctors are often shocked that progesterone drugs are taken in large quantities by our women. Progesterone has become something of a chewing gum, without which our women are afraid to conceive and carry their children …

The idea of the "universality of progesterone", which supposedly treats almost all women's diseases, is being developed and supported by modern pharmaceutical companies that produce and sell hormones, since this global myth and the artificially created psychological dependence on progesterone, dyufastone, morning and the like brings fabulous income to their producers

Progesterone during pregnancy

Progesterone is a hormone that is produced in the ovaries after the ovulation process and prepares the uterus for future pregnancy. If it has not come, it takes about 10-14 days. If pregnancy has occurred, it is produced by the corpus luteum in the ovary in the first 8 weeks (on average), supporting the development of pregnancy. On this basis, all patients conclude that if there was a death of pregnancy (anembryonia, undeveloped pregnancy, spontaneous miscarriage), then there was little progesterone and because of this the pregnancy died. And this does not correspond in reality in the absolute-pre-absolute majority of cases! The opposite happens: the embryo dies (due to disturbed genetics, due to malformations, due to the impact of an acute viral infection, which can be symptomatic and asymptomatic, due to reasons that are still unknown to medical science), a signal is sent that progesterone production is no longer needed because the embryo has stopped its development, the level of progesterone begins to fall, in response to this, the processes of rejection of the dead pregnancy from the walls of the uterus are triggered, which ultimately results in the appearance of bloody discharge (remark: the appearance of spotting against the background of pregnancy does not always mean that the pregnancy has died) and a miscarriage occurs (which is actually called in medicine a spontaneous miscarriage). T .e. initially not a small amount of progesterone (and because of this miscarriage), but the primary death of the pregnancy itself and, in response to this, there is a decrease in progesterone … Therefore, a woman takes progesterone drugs or not during pregnancy with or without bloody discharge - the chances of carrying a pregnancy do not change in any way (there are exceptions to this rule - more on that below). Therefore, nowhere, except Russia, there is such a bacchanalia in the appointment of progesterone drugs: you have abdominal pain - take progesterone drugs, your age is over 35 years old - take progesterone drugs, you have fibroids - take progesterone drugs, you have blood / bloody discharge on background of pregnancy - take progesterone drugs, you have chorionic / placental abruption by ultrasound - take progesterone drugs. Here are typical Russian examples of prescribing progesterone drugs during pregnancy.

And according to evidence-based medicine, progesterone is prescribed during pregnancy:

- women with a history of habitual miscarriage (two spontaneous miscarriages in a row);

- women who got pregnant in the IVF program;

- women with a history of premature birth (delivery before 37 weeks of gestation)

- women with a short cervix by ultrasound in the period of 20-22 weeks (in the West, the appointment of the drug in this case is considered controversial).

Woman's age, uterine fibroids / spotting, detachment - by themselves are not an indication for the appointment of progesterone drugs.

At the same time, for the appointment of progesterone drugs during pregnancy in the right situations, a blood test for progesterone is not required at all. A blood test for progesterone is also not required for those who are already taking progesterone preparations in connection with these medical situations (recurrent miscarriage, IVF, premature birth, short neck).

A blood test for progesterone during pregnancy is generally of no interest to anyone, because based on its result, no definitive predictions about pregnancy are made at all (whether the pregnancy will develop or not). Such predictions are made based on the results of an ultrasound scan and / or analysis of hCG (chorionic gonadotropin is another hormone that begins to be produced during pregnancy; a pregnancy test is based on the analysis of hCG in urine).

Why do IVF pregnant women need to take progesterone? Women who underwent embryo replanting do not have their corpus luteum of pregnancy, so there is no organ that will produce progesterone in sufficient quantities until the placenta takes on this role. So it turns out that if after IVF the pregnancy is not supported by additional administration of progesterone, then embryo replanting will not be successful in most cases. This hormone is indispensable here.

What does a healthy woman do? If a woman has normal regular cycles and she became pregnant spontaneously within a year without the intervention of doctors, this is a normal, healthy conception of a child. This means that the hormone levels of such a woman are in order. Why should she prescribe additional hormonal drugs? For what?

A defective ovum cannot implant correctly, so the level of hCG does not rise as it does in a normal pregnancy, and the corpus luteum of pregnancy does not support such a pregnancy by producing enough progesterone - it is interrupted. And no matter how much progesterone is administered, it will not help. We tried to inject hCG with progesterone, but the results were the same - it does not help. Why? The fertilized egg is already defective from the moment of its inception, therefore, from the point of view of nature, normal offspring will not work out of it. But our doctors think or know the least about this, and therefore prescribe hormones to all women "just in case."

Reproductive medicine has helped solve two other issues - the treatment of recurrent spontaneous miscarriages and the success of IVF (artificial insemination) due to the addition of progesterone. In a number of women, repeated spontaneous miscarriages are associated with a deficiency of the progesterone (luteal) phase. And the point is not at all in a full-fledged egg, but in poor preparation of the uterus for the adoption of the ovum. Usually, the insufficiency of the luteal phase is associated with the insufficiency of the first phase of the menstrual cycle (estrogen), but if the maturation of the egg occurs, albeit belated, then this is already good. Therefore, the second phase becomes more important for the implantation process. There are not so many women suffering from luteal phase deficiency, just this diagnosis is abused by doctors from post-Soviet states.

Scientists from around the world have conducted a lot of research on "conservation" therapy in early pregnancy, and they unanimously declare that there is no such therapy. It turns out that all those drugs that at least once tried to use to maintain or continue pregnancy are not effective. What is effective then? Oddly enough, the psychological factor, the woman's belief in a positive outcome, often works better than any drugs. For most women, progesterone is just a pacifier, a sedative pill, without which she has no faith in a positive pregnancy outcome. And doctors, friends, acquaintances taught the woman to this. And she will accustom her daughters to this …

Some statistics, or there is always a risk

The frequency of miscarriages is quite high: 15–20% of pregnancies end in them.

That is, for a practicing doctor, this is a fairly common situation, although in the life of every person, of course, this can happen only once or not at all.

Medical statistics, which translate medicine into numbers and make it a more accurate science, suggest that of the 15–20% of pregnancies that end in miscarriages, 80% or more occur in the first 12 weeks. That is, the longer the pregnancy, the less likely it is that a spontaneous miscarriage will occur. Thus, if a woman with a diagnosis of "threatened miscarriage", an ultrasound scan shows a fetus with a heartbeat, then the probability of a miscarriage is no longer 15%, but 5%, and at a gestational age of more than 12 weeks - the probability is already 2-3%, but she never will not be null. Because in medicine, as in ordinary life, nothing happens with a zero and 100% probability. When the gestation period is 22 weeks, the probability of a premature birth hangs over the pregnant woman by 10%.

All these numbers are the so-called population risks that weigh over the head of any woman, whether she takes progesterone drugs or not.

Medical statistics show that more than half of spontaneous miscarriages in the first 12 weeks are due to genetic disorders in the fetus

Moreover, the shorter the gestation period, the higher the likelihood that the cause was a genetic disorder in the fetus. This is the generalized data of numerous studies, mainly Western ones. The fact is that no matter what kings of nature we think we are, the same laws of nature act on us as on an ant, an insect, or a blade of grass.

These biological laws have not been canceled: the best and the strongest survive in the good sense of the word, in the biological sense

A biological individual cannot always produce 100% quality cells (in this case, we are talking about germ cells). So, in 1 ml of a man's sperm, on average, there are 20 million spermatozoa, and normally about 10% of them, that is, 2 million, are pathological forms. And such a spermogram will be considered normal. In a woman, not very high-quality eggs can also mature, and the older we get, the more likely it is that a poor-quality egg will mature. This is not because we are deliberately doing something wrong - lifting something heavy, drinking an extra cup of coffee, overworking at home / at work. Unlike sperm, which are constantly renewed, all the eggs of a future woman are laid at the moment when her mother is 20 weeks pregnant.

And new eggs are never laid again, they are only consumed, only lost throughout the life of the girl / woman.

That is, if you are 35 years old, then the egg that came out of your ovary this month has been in the ovary waiting for its turn to ovulate for more than 35 years. Therefore, of course, in a 20-year-old woman and a 40-year-old woman, not only the quantity, but also the quality of the eggs will be different. Because everything unfavorable around us in terms of nutrition, environment, air and water affects the first one for only 20 years, and the second one - already 40. Therefore, it is not worth delaying pregnancy.

Two worlds, two approaches

When a woman is threatened with miscarriage, the doctor's actions in Russia and abroad will be fundamentally different, and this is not so much due to different scientific data, but cultural differences that have arisen during the isolation of our medical school. Abroad, such women are simply sent home: they are "prescribed" bed rest, general clinical examination, and sexual rest. Time will tell how this situation will end: either the pregnancy will continue, or a miscarriage will occur, if it is of poor quality, and it is good that it was "rejected" by the body.

In Russia there is a slightly different psychological attitude of the population to medicine and a slightly different medicine.

In our country, a threatening miscarriage is an indispensable indication for hospitalization: the patient is prescribed no-shpa, tocolytic drugs that relax the uterus, and hemostatic drugs. This is not a question of biological or medical differences - this is a question of the psychology of most of our population: if the doctor did not give a pill, then he did not seek to help. And it is quite difficult to convey to people that the laws of nature operate here - you cannot influence them. According to our, Russian, protocol, the doctor has no right not to offer hospitalization if there is a threat of miscarriage. However, scientific medical facts clearly show that hospitalization does not fundamentally change anything in the prognosis: the likelihood of spontaneous miscarriage from this does not in any way decrease. Western research shows that there are no medications that can cope with spontaneous miscarriage. If the pregnancy persists, then it is nature that preserves the pregnancy, not the treatment.… For a habitual miscarriage, there are such medications: if it was possible to identify the cause of repeated abortions, it can be influenced. This treatment is prescribed either before pregnancy or early in pregnancy, before any symptoms of threatened termination appear.

It is important to understand that nothing can be done to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence of termination in a subsequent pregnancy to zero

Even if all the necessary and unnecessary tests are done (which, unfortunately, is very common), the necessary treatment is carried out, the likelihood that the miscarriage will recur is on average the same 15–20%.

Is the progesterone drug so harmless?

In the 70s, synthetic progesterone was widely used in the United States by women in the first trimester of pregnancy. And suddenly there was evidence that synthetic progesterone can cause the appearance of small (small) malformations in the fetus, especially the genitals of girls and boys. The US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of progesterone in pregnant women in the first trimester, and in the instructions for use of the drug there was a statement “taking progesterone is contraindicated in pregnancy up to 4 months, as it can cause minor fetal malformations”, and then went a detailed description of all types of defects that have been reported in cases where women used progesterone in the first trimester.

In addition, a link has been proven between progesterone drugs and an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy. Abroad, the rate of ectopic pregnancy is extremely low - this is a rare condition. But our women are extremely intimidated by ectopic pregnancies. And I was always interested in the question: is it really that our women have a higher risk of ectopic pregnancies than women in other countries of the world? It turns out that our women have a reason to be afraid of a high level of ectopic pregnancy, because almost all of our women are "poisoned" by progesterone. What do doctors tell you when they prescribe progesterone? That he supposedly relaxes the uterus, lowers its contraction and helps implantation. The fact is that normally the uterus does not need additional progesterone for implantation, but none of the doctors thinks that the fallopian tubes are also created from muscles and for the timely advancement of the ovum through the fallopian tube, contractions (motility) of the fallopian tubes should not be violated. Progesterone drugs REDUCE the motility of the fallopian tubes. This leads to the fact that the fertilized egg may not reach the uterine cavity in time and may "get stuck" in the fallopian tube. You must understand that by taking progesterone, you increase the risk of an ectopic pregnancy.

In addition, the appointment of progesterone in our country has created the dependence of a woman who is often still preparing to become a mother, and even more so a pregnant woman, from all kinds of pills, injections, droppers, suppositories and other things - the dependence of an artificially created fear that without a medicine, pregnancy will not progress and end up interrupting it. Thus, taking pills for most women becomes an obligatory attribute of their life, and even more so when all their friends, colleagues, relatives, acquaintances were carrying a pregnancy "on progesterone."

You can read more about progesterone, its effect on the body of a woman and an unborn child in the book of obstetrician-gynecologist Elena Berezovskaya Hormone therapy in obstetrics and gynecology: illusions and reality ».

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