Recently in Health Category

I caught the following conversation between two pretty women in the ladies' room of a Manhattan restaurant. One of the women was pregnant. And she said, "So my acupuncturist made me take the ring out of my belly button."

"Really?" her friend exclaimed.

"Yeah, he said, 'Let's give this baby a chance.'"

Enthralled by this ripe exchange, I called Manhattan acupuncturist Robert Abramson and asked him about it. "Oh," he softly chuckled, "Maybe her acupuncturist was me!"

Turns out belly button piercing is an especially bad idea from an acupuncturist's perspective.

Abramson explains: "The belly button rests upon a central meridian known as the 'conception vessel,' and this meridian is of paramount importance for conception in all of its aspects-- obviously in the conceiving of a child, but also in the conceiving of new ideas."

Any ornamental piercing on the body (a well as the metal object that rests in it) will interfere with the smooth flow of the body's chi (or vital life force), so when considering a new hole (even in your ear or nose), you must weigh the costs and benefits. Abramson says he's heard that pirates of yore pierced their ears to offset the symptoms of sea sickness. Changes that look purely ornamental, can have accompanying--if subtle--physical effects.

The social pressure to conform to fashion and pierce the ears or nose today is so great, however, that Abramson has no enormous reaction when he meets a new client who has pierced these areas. But key to the practice of Chinese medicine is the notion that anything you do to a part influences the whole. He asks his clients to consider that in all they do. And even though a piercing or tattoo (which Abramson sees as even more benign) creates a physical change, you've engaged in behavior that has mental and spiritual implications. This behooves us to pay close attention to our actions and stay flexible, he says. All permanent decisions should obviously be evaluated through a filter of future time. How's this going to look when I'm older? And in the case of the belly button: how will this effect me if I ever want to conceive? Even men, Abramson says, aren't the best candidates for belly button piercing if they want to impregnate a partner.

"We all want to be peacocks," Abramson says. But it is generally wisest to leave yourself unaltered in as much as you can.

And belly button rings? Well, they've got to go.

I hope the woman I eavesdropped on is enjoying the full flow of her chi now, and has had a great pregnancy!

Here's some information on illness, acupuncture, and navel-piercing.

And here's a fascinating-looking book, "The Tao of Piercing," that explains how to pierce consciously.

Good testament to the power of fish oil and omega-3s here. I've heard these supplements are especially crucial for kids with special needs.

New York City's heart stood still yesterday when a 24"-wide, 80-year-old steam pump exploded under the ground near Grand Central Station releasing huge billows of sulfery steam and fountains of rock, mud, and yes, particles of asbestos (insulation that the pipe was covered in). Prolonged asbestos exposure is a known carcinogen, and damages the lung.

So today, city workers are testing the air, the ground, and the clothes that people near the explosion were wearing, assuring us that if asbestos is in the air it's at a level that won't hurt anyone.

Obviously, the people asbestos usually kills are workers involved in its own manufacture. But the memories of the lies city officials told rescue workers and people working near the two Trade Towers are still raw and painful from the aftermath of 9/11. And this episode awakens all that. They should acknowledge that. The wounds are far from healed. And Con Ed (NY's utility company) lied once before, when the same thing happened in 1989. AND, today police officers wore pink air-filtering masks in areas where civilians walked bare-faced.

I lie to my children occasionally when their peace of mind warrants it, but the citizens of New York deserve honest communication. If officials are so focused on keeping the peace, so fearful of lawsuits and claims, if they try to only soothe us like mother wrens on a nest, what relationship are we to have if the going ever really gets rough?

What do you think? (I was raised within an alcoholic household where unacceptable behavior was ignored or even advanced as perfectly normal, so I am sensitive to falsehoods being passed off as the truth. Can you relate?)

Dried and in capsules, it might not taste half bad. Here's an article about how a mother prone to postpartum depression overcame her history by eating bits of her fourth baby's placenta.

Car manufacturers are in the process of developing less toxic, more environmentally sound car interiors. While we wait, we can study this page developed by green journalist Debra Lynn Dadd, and actually discover which current car interiors are safest for the environment and the chemically sensitive.

For information on how to find a new car that can provide you with excellent interior air quality, click here and here. Used cars can be good choices since their PVC toxins have "gassed out" into the atmosphere. Here's a balanced article on the whole subject from MSNBC.

If you're spending a lot of time in your car, these reports are important.

Stuck with a car (old or new) whose smell you don't adore? Click here and read about which essential oils can uplift you. Good oils for summer air freshening are cardamom, citronella, coriander, eucalyptus, geranium, ginger, grapefruit, jasmine, lemon, lime, peppermint, rose, spearmint, and ylang ylang. Car oil-diffusing kits like this one are usually available at the health food store.

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Yesterday, my childrens' swimming teacher cancelled a lesson because she had awful stomach cramps. Twenty-four hours later, she is better. It wasn't food poisoning, she says. She's suspecting it had something to do with the fact that her dog and...