US Women's Soccer Team Reached World Cup Final

US Women Reach World Cup Final

VOA - Parke Brewer July 13, 2011

The United States women's soccer team has reached the World Cup final for the first time since it last won the title on home soil in 1999.

The FIFA women's World Cup has been played five previous times, and the United States is the only nation to make the semifinals in every tournament.

But the Americans' only titles came in the inaugural event in 1991 in China and in the memorable victory over China on penalty kicks 12 years ago California.  They finished third in 2003 and 2007.

Now after Wednesday's stirring 3-1 victory over France in Moenchengladbach, Germany, the United States is back in the final for the first time since 1999.

Star U.S. striker Abby Wambach broke a 1-1 deadlock with a header off Lauren Cheney's corner kick in the 79th minute.  It was Wambach's third goal of the tournament and 12th of her career, tying her with fellow American Michelle Akers for third on the all-time World Cup scoring list.

It was Cheney's goal in the 9th minute that gave the United States the early lead.  But she told ESPN she credits Wambach for her efforts.

"Not only is she at the right place at the right time, but she has more heart than anybody that I've ever played with," said Cheney. "And I know that in the last minute, she's going to get it done."

Twenty-two year-old Alex Morgan, the youngest player on the U.S. team, added an insurance goal in the 82nd minute, racing past four defenders on a breakaway and deftly lifting the ball over the French goalkeeper.

U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo told ESPN that after the dramatic quarterfinal penalty kicks win over Brazil, she was confident they would win.

"That's this team's mentality," said Solo. "We do it for our country; we do it for our nation.  It's our mentality, we're going to win.  And there wasn't one point - even though it was a sloppy goal against us, I was very upset - but I knew our team would dig us out."

The United States will play in Sunday's final in Frankfurt against Japan, a 3-1 upset winner over Sweden in Wednesday's other semifinal.

Japan had also upset two-time defending champion and host Germany in the quarterfinals.  

US Women Reach World Cup Final
US Women's Soccer Team Reached Football World Cup Final - Article from VOA

Women Thriving in Traditionally All-Male Football

Women Thriving in Traditionally All-Male American Football
VOA - Tala Hadavi | Baltimore, Maryland June 08, 2011

Photo: VOA Photo T. Hadavi
The Baltimore Nighthawks line up against the Philadelphia Firebirds

American Football has supplanted baseball in recent years as America's favorite sport. But though men and women both enjoy it, it has traditionally been played almost entirely by men. The past few years, however, have seen the debut of a number of women's leagues - playing by the same rules and with the same level of contact as the men's sport.

When you think about American football, you envision it being played by heavily-padded big men making violent contact with each other. But Tarsha Fain, team captain of the Baltimore Nighthawks says, think again.

"I feel women can do anything a man can do," said Fain. "The same way they get out there and hit, we get out there and hit too."

Hormone Could Restore Fertility in Women with Very Low Body Fat

Hormone Could Restore Fertility in Lean Women

Leptin also appears to reduce risk of bone fractures

VOA Art Chimes | St. Louis, Missouri April 07, 2011

Some women with very low body fat - such as athletes and professional dancers - stop menstruating and have an increased risk of bone fracture. Now, there's increasing evidence that hormone treatments can help these women.
The study involved young women with extremely low body fat and a condition called hypothalamic amenorrhea. It's part of a self-preservation mechanism shared by many species: when the food supply is low, scarce energy is focused on survival, not reproduction.

"These women had stopped having their periods because they were exercising more than usual, or having stress, or a little bit of decreased food intake," says Sharon Chou, a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

In a new study, she and her colleagues tested whether a synthetic form of the hormone leptin could restore normal menstrual periods.

Leptin was discovered in 1994. It is related to the body's reserves of fat, so the hormone was investigated as a possible treatment to curb the appetites of obese people. That didn't work, but subsequent research found that leptin does play an important role in regulating how the body responds to lower food supplies.

Researchers found women with hypothalamic amenorrhea had low levels of leptin, and a 2004 study suggested that treatments with synthetic leptin (metreleptin) could restore menstruation. This latest research confirms that finding with a larger, more scientifically-rigorous study.

Nevertheless, Chou says the research is still a work in progress, so doctors won't be doing leptin treatments in the immediate future.

"But the idea is, these women can regain their menstrual cycle, menstrual function. And then, we're also looking to see if, used over a longer time period - perhaps one or two years - if these women would regain some of their bone loss."

The paper describing the effectiveness of leptin treatments by first author Sharon Chou, senior author Christos Mantzoros, and colleagues, is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

Hormone Could Restore Fertility in Lean Women

Article from VOA

Geraldine Ferraro, US Political Pioneer

Geraldine Ferraro, US Political Pioneer, Dies at 75

VOA - Kent Klein | The White House March 26, 2011 

 

Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman vice presidential candidate on a major U.S. party ticket, has died. Ferraro’s unsuccessful 1984 campaign paved the way for future female candidates for national office.  

Former congresswoman and vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro died Saturday in Boston, Massachusetts at the age of 75.  She had battled blood cancer for more than a decade.

Ferraro was a little-known three-term Representative from the New York City borough of Queens, when, in 1984, Walter Mondale, the Democratic Party nominee for president, chose her as his running mate.

The first woman nominated by a major party for national office introduced herself to Americans at the Democratic National Convention.

“I stand before you to proclaim tonight: America is the land where dreams can come true for all of us," she said.

Her acceptance speech drew eight minutes of foot stomping and cheering from the delegates in the convention hall.

Ferraro campaigned intensely against the policies of the Republican president, Ronald Reagan, and for women’s rights.

“This candidacy is not just a symbol.  It is a breakthrough.  It is not just a statement.  It is a bond between women all over America," she said.

Ferraro was also the first, and so far the only, Italian-American candidate on a U.S. major party ticket.

Controversy also accompanied her candidacy.  She was often confronted by protesters angry about her favorable view of abortion rights.

Also, questions arose about the business dealings of Ferraro’s husband, John Zaccaro, who later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor fraud charge.

Mr. Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush were re-elected in one of the most one-sided presidential races in history, defeating Mondale and Ferraro in 49 of the 50 states.

Mondale Saturday remembered his former running mate as a pioneer for justice for women and a more open society.

Former President George H.W. Bush said despite the fierceness of the 1984 campaign, he and Ferraro later enjoyed a friendship marked by respect and affection.

After the election, Ferraro returned to a private law practice, and made two unsuccessful runs for the U.S. Senate.

She also acted as an advocate for women who were raped during the ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia.  And President Bill Clinton appointed Ferraro ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Twenty-four years after Ferraro’s pioneering run for vice president, two women figured prominently in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Sarah Palin became the second woman on a national ticket, and the first Republican woman, when John McCain chose her as his vice presidential candidate.  Palin paid tribute to Ferraro on her Internet Facebook page on Saturday.

Also that year, Hillary Clinton finished a close second to Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president.  It was the strongest-ever showing for a woman in a major-party campaign for national office.

Ferraro, who was supporting Clinton, created a controversy by appearing to suggest that Mr. Obama achieved his status in the presidential race only because he is African-American.

But on Saturday, President Obama praised Ferraro as a trailblazer who broke down barriers for women and for Americans of all backgrounds.  He also said his daughters will grow up in a more equal America because of the life Geraldine Ferraro chose to live.

 

Geraldine Ferraro, US Political Pioneer, Dies at 75

Article from VOA

Women in the Middle East Revolution - Will they get more rights?

Will Women Benefit from Middle East Revolution?
VOA - Aida F. Akl | Washington, D.C. March 09, 2011

When the dust of Egypt's revolution began to settle and the country struggled toward a democratic government, many of the women who stood side-by-side with men in Cairo's Tahrir Square were struck that not one woman was named to the committee to reform the constitution.

Prominent Egyptian author and activist Nawaal el-Saadawi says that angered women who marched on equal footing with men to oust former President Hosni Mubarak - only to find themselves thrown back to the old ways and excluded from the new order. She said the women felt their rights were being taken from them.

"Women’s rights cannot be given ... We have to take [them] by the political power of women," she said. "And that’s why we are reestablishing our Egyptian Women Union."

Al-Saadawi says women were scattered, weak and divided under the former regime and efforts are under way to unite them.

"So we are trying to bring women together to have political power so that we can fight for our rights in a collective group," al-Saadawi explained.

Fears of being excluded also echoed in neighboring Tunisia among many of the women who participated in the revolution to oust the Ben-Ali regime. Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy and Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations says Tunisian women worry about the return to power of some of the more conservative elements might try to repeal Tunisia's progressive family laws.

Coleman notes that Iraq saw a similar situation a few years ago, when the country's new government tried to rescind the family law that had been in place under the Baathist regime for a long time and replace it with religious law. Many Iraqi women favored the implementation of Islamic law, says Coleman, while others feared it would mean a regression of their rights.

But it remains unclear how women will benefit from revolutionary change in the Middle East. Coleman says the first consequence has been the "fall of more secular-oriented governments that have used their authoritarian power to push through, often against the wishes of powerful voices within the country, more progressive rights for women."

She says governments are now going to have grapple with the possible resurgence of Islamists. "And women's rights will be a very clear litmus test of whether they are finding compatibility between Islam and democracy or not," noted Coleman.

Crucial to finding that compatibility is a clear definition of women's roles in society. The problem, says Shadi Hamid, a Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center, is that there is no clear consensus around the role women should play, particularly in Arab society. That is partially due to the perception that women's rights are more of a Western concept.

"And that's why we see the odd phenomenon in some countries of Arab women working against their own supposed 'rights,' " explained Hamid. "And we see this, for example, in some of the Gulf countries where women have actually advocated against being given the right to vote or have not been in favor of, supposedly, pro-Western reform."

Cheryl Benard, a Senior Analyst with the RAND Corporation, says there are women who have made a "generations-long bargain" with the existing society, where they accept that they are going to be in an inferior position, and they believe that, in exchange for that, they get something.

"They get security. They get the shelter of their relatives taking care of them," said Benard. "So those women, I think, are, in part, afraid of change because they are afraid of what it will mean if that traditional, conservative protection maybe falls away and they have to be in charge of themselves."

Benard says that fear is less prevalent among the young and educated urban populations, leaving a gap between rural and urbal populations. Equally pronounced are the gaps that stand out in education, political participation and labor in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2010.

The report also reveals some interesting extremes. Women in the United Arab Emirates, for example, surpass men in educational attainment by two points, but lag behind men in Yemen by about 36 percentage points.

But the Rand Corporation's Benard cautions that the statistics don't tell the whole story. She says the overall, long-term picture is promising. For example, countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia no longer publish grades at universities because the women are so far ahead of the men that they don’t want to embarrass the men.

"Yes there are countries where women lag behind, where they are more of the illiterates compared to men. But if you look at it generationally, first of all it tends to be often not really true anymore of the younger women," Benard said. "And if you look at it regionally - urban vs. rural areas - it’s also not quite true. There have been a lot of changes going on and women have actually even pulled ahead of men in the educational field in some areas. The same is true economically."

But progress in education has not been matched on the political front. Women parliamentarians remain absent in places like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and their share of cabinet positions in most other countries is contingent on a quota-based system.

"There are a couple different models here," says Hamid of Brookings. "One model ... that you’ve seen in Morocco and Jordan, is where the regime, or in this case the monarchies, ignore popular opinions and effectively impose changes in the sphere of women’s participation."

Hamid says the majority opinion is not very supportive of a very visible role for women. "And that's why when there aren't quotas in the political system, women have immense difficulties winning even the smallest number of seats in parliamentary elections."

Top-down efforts, says Hamid, don’t have the support of the larger population. Many people don't feel comfortable voting women into senior positions, and not all women are in favor of women's empowerment. He says a lot of women's empowerment efforts come from the secular, elite side of society, which is a minority in Arab society.

"The population will go along with it, but it’s not really based on a cultural shift," he said. "It’s not based on a shift in attitudes. And without that shift in attitudes at the grassroots level, change is not going to be deep or sustainable ... The question is how do you initiate a grassroots process in favor of women’s empowerment?"

As democracy begins to emerge in the Middle East, Hamid says women and liberal groups advocating their rights will have greater political space and room to make their voices heard.

"We have to question the whole premise that equal rights in the Western sense, is something that all societies would like and want to fight for," he cautioned. "And it appears to be the case that Arab societies aren’t willing to go all the way to where the West is ... I think everyone supports women’s empowerment. But I think it means different things to different people."

While Benard of the RAND Corporation agrees that the region has to find its own formula for women's empowerment, she says the women and their families who participated in the revolutions embody a change in Middle Eastern women that has disspelled some of the Western misconceptions.

"This is quite a different picture of the role of women in the Middle East ... where one thought that the families were all ultra-conservative, [that] they don’t want the women to be out and about, [that] they don’t think that the public space is something appropriate for women," Benard said. "That is not what we have seen. We’ve also seen women ... online, taking a leadership role often and organizing this and calling for things to happen."

So how will Middle Eastern women shape their own future in the new order?

The populations of the region are able to determine their own destiny, says Benard, and are more capable than they are given credit for. "Sometimes, she says, "the best thing you can do for somebody is [to] get out of their way."


Will Women Benefit from Middle East Revolution?
Article from VOA

Preventing Heart Disease in Women - American Heart Association Guidelines

New Heart-Health Guidelines Issued for Women

First specific tips that are not tailored for men

Art Chimes | St. Louis, Missouri February 17, 2011 - VOA

In the past, women have used heart-health guidelines that were developed based on research on men.

The American Heart Association is out with a new set of guidelines aimed at preventing heart disease in women. Although, heart disease is thought to mainly affect men, it is actually an equal opportunity killer. These are the first heart-health tips tailored specifically for women.
Heart disease is the biggest killer of both men and women worldwide, and is projected to stay that way for decades, according to the World Health Organization.

Dr. Lori Mosca, who headed the group which wrote the guidelines, says "heart disease is largely preventable," and there are ways women can reduce their risk. "In fact, control of major risk factors has been shown to cut the rate of dying of heart disease in half in the past two decades."

The guidelines, which were first introduced a decade ago, are actually designed to help doctors counsel their patients, but this year for the first time, the revised guidelines are also being published in a more user-friendly form, written for non-physicians.

The guidelines promote reducing the risk of heart disease by stopping smoking, being physically active, and eating fruits and vegetables, among other lifestyle choices. Other guidelines deal with aspirin and cholesterol-lowering drugs and when those drugs are most effective.

In some cases the latest guidelines lower the threshold at which women would be considered at high risk, "because many of the current strategies and tools that we have to define high risk in women have been shown to actually underestimate the level of risk that a woman has," Mosca says.

Although the guidelines are issued by the American Heart Association, Mosca says they apply to women everywhere.

"The scientific base to develop the guidelines has been drawn from across the world, so we're quite confident that the guidelines themselves apply to women regardless of the country they live in."

That said, the experts who developed the guidelines acknowledge they may need to be adapted to reflect regional or local resources and lifestyles.

New Heart-Health Guidelines Issued for Women

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International Marriage Brokers - American men marry women from other countries

Websites Put New Face on Business of Seeking American Husbands
13 February 2011 - VOA


CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Christopher Cruise.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I’m Faith Lapidus. Some people will celebrate this Valentine's Day with someone they met on the Internet through a dating site. But dating sites are not the only online places where people look for relationships.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: This week on our program, we look at international marriage brokers who help American men marry women from other countries.

FAITH LAPIDUS: The Internet is at the heart of a modern business with a long history. In America, the business of men sending for women from other countries began in the Old West in the eighteen hundreds.

There were many men living on the frontier. These included the "forty-niners" -- men who moved to California in eighteen forty-nine to search for gold. But there were very few women willing to join them.

As a result, demand grew for women from other countries. They were called "picture brides" -- better known today as "mail-order brides."

These days, women who advertise online for husbands are sometimes called "e-mail-order brides." But some people consider either term insulting. They say it suggests that the women are products that can be purchased.

Finding an American husband, they say, might provide an escape from a life of poverty or danger or loneliness. No one blames people for seeking a better life. But critics say this business sometimes seems like just another form of human trafficking.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: One study of agencies that list women seeking husbands found there were around ten thousand "mail-order marriages" a year. About four thousand of these involved men from the United States.

Other husbands were Canadian, Australian, European and Japanese. The women were mostly Filipino or Russian, although there were listings of women from almost every country.

But these marriage numbers may be low. They are from a report published in nineteen ninety-seven when the Internet was still young.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Former Air Force officer David Knabel met his Russian wife through an international marriage brokerage. He says he was so happy, he later bought the company. The business is called A Volga Girl, based in Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Knabel introduces Russian women to American men.

DAVID KNABEL: “Why a few, very low percentage of ladies from Russia that are interested in finding a foreign husband is because of the problem with the Russian men. There’s a huge contingent of Russian men that are alcoholics and womanizers and several of the ladies have gone through that and they just don’t want that kind of man for their husband."

Mr. Knabel's company has been in business for eleven years. He says just five percent of the marriages have ended in divorce, a claim that is difficult to confirm.

He points out that the Federal Bureau of Investigation must do a background check on a man before he can bring a woman to America.

DAVID KNABEL: “What protects the lady is when the FBI does their background check, and if this guy’s got a criminal record he’s not going to be allowed to bring a lady here.”

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Other requirements involve the agency known as ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. For example, couples must have met at least once in person sometime in the last two years.

A fiancé visa can let people come to the United States. But once they arrive they must get married within ninety days or return to their home country.

FAITH LAPIDUS: The Tahirih Justice Center is a nonprofit group in the Washington area. It helps immigrant women who have been abused by American husbands. Heather Heiman is a lawyer there.

HEATHER HEIMAN: “We try not to demonize or vilify the international marriage brokerage industry as a whole. We understand that there are some brokered relationships out there that do end in happy marriages. But what we have unfortunately encountered is many situations where brokered marriages have not ended in happy relationships. And unfortunately when abusive situations do occur, the abuse can be horrific."

Ms. Heiman says foreign wives often do not know there are laws that protect them, even if they are not citizens.

HEATHER HEIMAN: “In our experience, foreign brides are just often particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. For example, they’re dependent on their husbands for their legal immigration status. When they come over here they may be isolated from their support network of family and friends. They might have limited English skills. And often what we’ve found is they don’t know that domestic violence is a crime in this country or even where to seek help if they’re being abused."

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: There have been some studies of the practice of foreign women marrying American men. Some women use international marriage brokers. Others join American dating websites.

An estimated sixty percent of the women are twenty-five or younger. Half of the men are over the age of thirty-seven.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Researchers say power and control may be more important than love to men who seek a foreign wife. This may be true especially of men seeking a woman who advertises herself as "traditional." The men often say American women want a career and are not happy with "only" being a wife and mother.

One study found that most of the men are white, have some college education and are economically middle class. The majority are politically and socially conservative. Most live in cities. Most have been married before. And most want children.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: John Baker is white, middle-class, divorced and conservative. He is sixty-four and retired from the Army. Mr. Baker has been talking with a woman in Russia for the past four years. Her name is Svetlana.

They talk online but Mr. Baker says he has also visited her. He says Svetlana is fifty-five years old and, like himself, has children who are grown. Mr. Baker says he knew there was a chance he could be tricked while looking for a relationship online.

JOHN BAKER: "I knew that there was a lot of scamming going on, mostly criminal men who would post some really gorgeous girl’s pictures on a website. And sometimes they win -- they take advantage of some guy. I went into this with my eyes open to that possibility and avoided that."

John Baker says he wants to bring Svetlana to the United States and marry her as soon as he has enough money saved.

FAITH LAPIDUS: John Adams has owned an international marriage brokerage in Phoenix, Arizona, for sixteen years. His business is called A Foreign Affair. Mr. Adams says there are a lot of mistaken beliefs about American men who want to marry foreign women.

JOHN ADAM: "These aren’t guys that are losers, these aren’t guys that can’t get dates. These are guys that are very proactive. And they’re trying to find the best possibilities for what’s going to be the most important decision they ever make in their life -- who to spend the rest of their life with, who to build their family with. The stigma of 'Oh, they just want to go marry someone and bring her over and tie her up in the basement and keep her as a sex slave' is just ludicrous."

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: In two thousand five, Congress passed a law that included what is known as IMBRA, the International Marriage Broker Registration Act. This legislation followed highly publicized cases of violence by American men against their foreign wives.

IMBRA bars an American with a history of violent crimes from bringing someone to the United States to marry. If the American has a record of other crimes, then the foreign spouse is supposed to receive a copy.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Heather Heiman at the Tahirih Justice Center says the law has some problems. But she says it has helped women who have been abused.

HEATHER HEIMAN: “What IMBRA does is it just introduces some common-sense safeguards that we’re going to allow foreign women to make informed decisions and to better protect themselves. For example, one thing that IMBRA created was a fact sheet that should be distributed by international marriage brokers and by the US government that will inform a foreign bride about her rights and about resources available in the United States if she finds herself in a situation of abuse or exploitation."

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: In some cases, there may be a question of whether a foreign wife is exploiting her American husband -- using him just to come to America.

One study found three times when a relationship involving a foreign bride most commonly ends. The first is immediately upon coming to America. The next is three months after the marriage. This is when the wife may be declared a legal resident of the United States.

And the third is two years after the marriage, when the wife can seek permission to stay permanently.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Marriage broker David Knabel says he advertises women who went to college and have professional jobs. But he agrees that not all the companies in his industry work like that.

DAVID KNABEL: ”You can’t group all international marriage agencies into one piece, just like you can’t group all companies being all the same. I mean there’s a lot of agencies out there that specialize in third-world country brides, that are coming from poverty, uneducated, that kind of thing."

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Lawyer Heather Heiman says she sees only the bad side of the industry because she works with women who have been mistreated. She agrees that some brokered marriages work, but she says agencies sometimes create unrealistic expectations in men.

HEATHER HEIMAN: “For example they may market women on their websites as traditional or submissive or promote them as great investments."

She says, in her experience, the kind of men who use an international marriage broker may be looking for a kind of woman who does not exist anymore in America.

HEATHER HEIMAN: “One thing, unfortunately, that I think we have seen is some of them that are interested and partake of this industry are really, sort of, resisting the progress of women, I guess I would say. They’re looking, it seems to us, for a type of woman that existed in the forties and fifties and perhaps doesn’t conform with the typical type of woman you’d find today. And that’s again just something that raises a flag for us and that sometimes can be a cause for concern. These mismatched expectations can just lead to problems."

FAITH LAPIDUS: What do you think of the business of international marriage brokers? You can post comments at voaspecialenglish.com or on Facebook at VOA Learning English.

I'm Faith Lapidus with Christopher Cruise, who wrote this week's program. Brianna Blake was our producer. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

Heart Disease Top Killer of Women in USA

Heart Disease is Top Killer of US Women

Peter Fedynsky | New York City February 08, 2011 - VOA

In 1963, the U.S. Congress designated February as the American Heart Month to raise awareness about heart disease in the United States.  However, little attention has been devoted to female heart disease, even though it is reported to be the number one killer of women in the United States.  And more American women now die of heart disease than men.

In a video message to a women’s heart disease symposium in New York City, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius said nearly 43 million American women, one-third of the total, live with or risk having heart disease.  She added that heart disease claims the lives of more women in the U.S. than the next four leading causes combined.

"Researchers and scientists know these figures.  But it’s important that women know them too, because even though women are more likely to die from heart disease than men, they are less likely to receive the recommended care to prevent it," she said.

Panel members noted that more women have died of heart disease in America since 1984 than men.  But experts say a majority of women do not display the classic symptoms of a heart attack typically associated with men.

Dr. Noel Berz of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles characterized male symptoms as the "Hollywood heart attack".

"Shortness of breath, in the middle of the chest - boom, you fall over.  You’ve seen it in the movies.  That’s true less than half of the time for women.  Again, atypical symptoms are as equally prevalent.  So it could be just indigestion, or it could just be extreme fatigue; it could just be some jaw or some arm pain," he said.

Merz notes that one-third of male heart attack victims have such atypical symptoms.

Dr. Chet Rihal, the Chair of Cardiovascular diseases at the Mayo Clinic, says medical schools have taught the classic male presentation of a heart attack for generations.  As a result, many cardiologists still do not recognize subtle female symptoms.  In addition, Rihal says, research on sex-based differences is relatively new.

"We now understand more and more about them.  But getting that information out to the practicing cardiologists, internists or family practitioners, has been a slow process of diffusion," he said.

Ileana Pina, Professor of Medicine at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, said women themselves have a responsibility to learn more about risk factors and to ask their doctors the right questions.

"If you cholesterol hasn’t been done, ask for it.  Get your sugar, your glucose [numbers], find out what your waist circumference is - all the factors that will get you in trouble," she said.

The heart experts noted that women frequently neglect their own health to take care of their families.  Elizabeth Ofili, Chief of Cardiology at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, says young women with a history of family heart disease often dismiss warning signs.

"Women tend to think, yes, maybe there’s someone in my family has suffered these problems; there’s high blood pressure, maybe they’ve even had a stroke, congestive heart failure and kidney problems, but I have some time, and whatever is going on now, I will be able to overcome it later," she said.

Ofili says women should pay particular attention to abnormalities during pregnancy, such as high blood pressure or diabetes, even if they go away after childbirth, because they could be indicators of future problems.

The panelists gave standard recommendations that apply to equally to men and women everywhere - do not smoke, limit alcohol consumption, exercise and eat a healthy diet.  The risk of ignoring the advice is not simply a sudden and early death, but also reduced quality of life if the heart slowly loses its ability to pump.  And as one doctor noted, it’s not enough for a doctor to recommend; the patient must believe the recommendation to be true and must act on it.

Heart Disease is Top Killer of US Women
Article from VOA

Complications of Pregnancy and Childbirth - Steps Can Help Save Women's Lives

Health Advocates Say Simple Steps Can Save Women's Lives

Melinda Smith January 27, 2011 - VOA

Photo: VOA

A nurse-midwife tells women steps they can take to reduce the risks of dying from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, January 2011

Each year at least 300,000 women - a majority of them in developing countries - die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, particularly from hemorrhaging after birth. Maternal health advocates gathered in Washington, D.C., this week to share ideas that help save women's lives.

In a perfect world, every baby and new mother would have a safe delivery. The opposite is true, however, for hundreds of thousands of women every year.

That's why the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has declared maternal health and the reduction of maternal mortality by the year 2015 one of the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals. "A woman dies every minute. This is just [an] unacceptable situation in the 21st century. We must stop the situation."

But women's health advocates at this conference in Washington say a majority of these deaths could be reduced if women got prenatal care and insisted on the help of a skilled birth attendant or midwife.

Deborah Armbruster, a nurse-midwife now with the U.S. Agency for International Development, said, "If we can get women to use skilled attendants who would recognize, you know, that they've got a postpartum hemorrhage, then they can take care of the problems and we won't have women dying, and we won't have such serious morbidities that happen related to that."

Armbruster said women and their birth attendants often prefer to have the baby at home rather than go to a health clinic. And they frequently wait too long before getting help. Once the decision to seek help is made, there are other complications: traveling to the clinic can be dangerous over rough roads, not having the money to pay for medical help, as well as finding the medical facility with a shortage of blood for transfusions.

Like many others in developing countries, women in Bangladesh prefer to have their babies at home. To make that safer, Dr. Shabnam Shahnaz said pregnant women there receive a safe delivery kit, which includes a mat made of absorbent material.

As this training video illustrates, the women lay on the mat as they give birth. If the mat is soaked to the edges, they know to get help immediately because the woman has lost a critical amount of blood.

Dr. Shabnam Shahnaz of Pathfinder International in Bangladesh said, "She would have about two hours to get transferred to a nearby facility." Then she  she would go into shock or die.

Other simple means of trapping the blood range from use of a rubberized mat that funnels blood into a container, as well as a neoprene fabric that wraps tightly around the body. The anti-shock garment stabilizes the patient as she waits for help.

There are drugs that help contract the uterus and prevent further bleeding. Dr. Shahnaz said these are in ready supply, but often are held up by local bureaucracy. "The government has these in their supply. It is in their stock. It's easily available in the market."

Shahnaz differs from some health advocates who call for more training of birth attendants and doctors. What's really needed, she said, is for women to be in control of their own care. "To ask the doctors, 'Why aren't you giving it to me?  This is needed.  I know it is needed.  I know these are the steps that need to be taken.  Why didn't you do it?'  I think this is very, very critical."

Health Advocates Say Simple Steps Can Save Women's Lives - article and video from VOA