This is a little scary to me. I was thirty-one when I had Trent and thirty-two when I had Zoe and had gestational diabetes (which later became adult type 2), a placental abruption (Trent), and had to be on bedrest for three months (Zoe). I can't imagine what might happen if I tried to have another baby at the age of fifty. Hypertension during pregnancy is so dangerous one of the women I met while in the hospital in 2000 was there because her blood pressure was so out of control.

I didn't have any of those complications when I was expecting John in 1986/87. I was only nineteen years old then, though. These complications seem to become more prevalent as we age and that to me is frightening, because logically it means more bedridden mothers and very possibly more high-risk babies.

It's insane.

Another thing that has really been nibbling at me for awhile is some of the advertizing for products that are made especially for women.

Rogaine, for example. It offers a quick fix solution but doesn't really treat the underlying cause of the problem. The commercials don't tell you that you should have your thyroid checked if your hair starts to fall out. Hair loss in women is usually the first sign of a thyroid disorder, which is easily treated with medication. And guess what? A few weeks after a woman begins taking her thyroid meds, her hair starts to grow back. Not only that, but she gets back most, if not all of the hair she lost. I want to jump up and down in frustration when I see those ads because they're not giving women the whole story. Both the hyper and hypo type of thyroid disorders are life threatening when left untreated. Hyper kills you by speeding up your aging process, I know this because my aunt had dark brown hair that turned completely grey in less than six months and developed a huge goiter. Hypo kills you more slowly, by slowing down your metabolism and causing problems with regulating your weight. The nice people at Rogaine don't mention this in their ads.

Another thing that bugs me is the Bayer ads for aspirin that contains calcium. We know we need calcium and we can't always eat anough dairy (partly because of the stories about the fat in dairy products that scare the hell out of people), so now everything under the sun has calcium in it, from orange juice to cereal. What Bayer leaves out of it's ads is the fact that for people who have heart conditions and may be on blood thinners such a Coumadin, adding aspirin to their diet every day could have very serious consequences because aspirin also thins the blood. That's why doctors reccommend an aspirin a day for patients with mild cardiac problems, but they do not tell people who are on heart meds that already thin the blood to take them. My father was advised to only take acetominophen (Tylenol), because of the risks involved in mixing aspirin and certain heart meds.

It's getting really scary because as people look for more and more quick fixes for their problems they really leave themselves open to being hurt. Or worse.

Another problem is with diet remedies that contain large concentrations of mixed herbs. Sure, the herbs have been used for thousands of years, but as an expert on the subject recently pointed out on World News Tonight, not in the combinations and not in the concentrations which are currently available. The wrong combinations of herbs can cause everything from allergic reactions to kidney failure. After the damage is done there's no way to tell exactly what it was that caused the problem, because there are so many herbs in the pill or tea or whatever. Herbs can be as powerful as any medicine and in order to use them safely you have to know their purpose beforehand and expose yourself to only one type at a time to determine which ones you may be allergic to. I'm not talking about Celestial Seasonings herb tea blends, either. Those are in very small concentrations and any reactions would most likely be minor. What I'm referring to are the so-called diet herbal teas and pills. Some herbal tea companies claim that their teas can not only help you lose weight, but also regulate your hormones during menopause, lower your blood pressure or regulate your moods. Sometimes they can. But not always. Once again, people are not being warned of the potential for harm.

I'm not a doctor (but I play one on TV - hee hee, I've always wanted to say that), but I've studied extensively about herbs and their uses in healing as I've learned more and more about witchcraft and what I'm seeing in these commercials is both misleading and frightening.

I had to get all of that out of my system. It really bothers me, not just because of the lack of information we are being given but because these companies tend to target women. The diet companies target both sexes but are likely to hurt far more women because for us weight is a more serious issue than it is for men due to societal pressures.

People really need to do the research and find out what (and in what concentrations), it is they're taking.

Here endeth the pontification.