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sex and romantic life :
Saul, a 33-year-old managing director from Brighton, says that since the birth of his daughter 23 months ago, his wife is no longer interested in sex. 'I lie in bed and say: 'I know what it is - you're not attracted to me any more.' She says that it's nothing personal, that she loves me, but there's no demonstration of that fact. We used to have a vigorous sex life - three to four times a week. To have the tap turned off, without warning, after 10 years together, is the most devastating, painful thing. It's caused a massive tension between us. I feel like I've been dispensed with - as if my function is finished.'
Saul's experience is not uncommon. According to Ann Herreboudt, a London postnatal counsellor, about 40 per cent of the first-time mothers she sees have no sexual relations with their husbands for up to two years. 'And if you take into account the latter stages of pregnancy, it's even longer,' she says.
'Most say their husbands are fed up, but only half the women are concerned about it. That's a big mistake. More marriages break up in the first 18 months after childbirth than at any other time. And although there are no surveys, it's safe to assume that sex, or the lack of it, is a major contributing factor.'
In the post-birth chaos of sleepless nights, sex for her becomes an expendable option. For him, displaced from the centre of the family, it may take on an added significance. As Michael, a first-time father who hasn't had intercourse for 10 months, explains: 'It's not just a sexual thing. It's the fact that my wife puts my daughter first, second and third and that I come a poor fourth. The child is satisfying all her needs and her disinterest in sex has become a metaphor for her disinterest in me.'
Sheer physical exhaustion apart, there are numerous reasons why the new mother may take no interest in sex: the release of prolactin while breastfeeding depresses her libido; her body has yet to return to the shape that makes her feel attractive; she associates sex with pregnancy and the last thing she wants is to fall pregnant again. And if she was stitched too tightly, penetration might also be painful.
Ashley, a 29-year-old economist, says his wife got really angry when he didn't want to resume sex five months after the birth. 'It was awful. My brain was feeling randy as hell but my body didn't want to know. I didn't find her attractive any more. But it wasn't just that. I saw her body as the property of our son, as a mothering machine, and I felt excluded, like I didn't have a right to partake of it.' Sometimes, adds Debra Kroll, a community midwife, 'the man is so traumatised by what he sees at the birth that he becomes impotent.'
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...e-1531894.html
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your child might become this monstruosity once he/she reaches the age of puberty
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aging
Women with the highest levels of perceived stress have telomeres shorter on average by the equivalent of at least one decade of additional aging compared to low stress women.
Numerous studies demonstrate links between chronic stress and indices of poor health, including risk factors for cardiovascular disease and poorer immune function (1, 2). Nevertheless, the exact mechanisms of how such stress exerts these effects are not well known, including whether stress accelerates aging at a cellular level and how cellular aging translates to organismal aging. Recent research points to the crucial roles of telomeres and telomerase in cellular aging and potentially in disease. Telomeres are DNA–protein complexes that cap chromosomal ends, promoting chromosomal stability. When cells divide, the telomere is not fully replicated because of limitations of the DNA polymerases in completing the replication of the ends of the linear molecules, leading to telomere shortening with every replication (3). In vitro, when telomeres shorten sufficiently, the cell is arrested into senescence. In people, telomeres shorten with age in all replicating somatic cells that have been examined, including fibroblasts and leukocytes (4). Thus, telomere length can serve as a biomarker of a cell's biological (versus chronological) “age” or potential for further cell division.
Telomerase, a cellular enzyme, adds the necessary telomeric DNA (T2AG3 repeats) onto the 3′ ends of the telomere (5). Telomerase also has direct telomere-protective functions (6). In human T cells, telomerase activity increases with acute antigen exposure but decreases with repeated antigen stimulation and as the cells approach senescence (7). People with dyskeratosis congenita, a rare genetic disease that diminishes the ability to synthesize sufficient telomerase, have shortened telomeres and die prematurely from progressive bone marrow failure and vulnerability to infections (8).
Cellular environment also plays an important role in regulating telomere length and telomerase activity. Most notably, in vitro, oxidative stress can shorten telomeres and antioxidants can decelerate shortening (9, 10). Perceived stress has been linked to one measure of oxidative DNA damage in leukocytes in women (11, 12). Given these observed links, we hypothesized that chronic psychological stress may lead to telomere shortening and lowered telomerase function in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and to oxidative stress.
the more years of caregiving, the shorter the mother's telomere length, the lower the telomerase activity, and the greater the oxidative stress, even after controlling for the mother's age
Psychological stress could affect cell aging through at least three nonmutually exclusive pathways: immune cell function or distribution, oxidative stress, or telomerase activity. We considered whether stress might have decreased naïve T cells and increased memory T cells [which have shorter telomere length (22)], but the data did not support this (Table 2, which is published as supporting information on the PNAS web site). Second, stress could potentially lead to oxidative stress by means of chronic activation of the autonomic and neuroendocrine stress responses. Although this hypothesis has never been tested in vivo, the relationship between stress hormones and oxidative stress has been clearly demonstrated at the cellular level. Glucocorticoids, the primary adrenal hormones secreted during stress, increase oxidative stress damage to neurons, in part by increasing glutamate and calcium and decreasing antioxidant enzymes (23, 24). It is also notable that, in women, self-reported distress has been related to greater oxidative DNA damage (8-OH-dG) (12). Oxidative stress shortens telomeres in cells cultured in vitro (10). Our findings that perceived and chronic stress correlated with higher oxidative stress and shorter telomere length demonstrate this relationship cross-sectionally for the first time in vivo. Lastly, if the observed lowered telomerase activity represents chronic levels, it too could have contributed to the shortened telomeres in PBMCs.
In summary, in healthy women, psychological stress is associated with indicators of accelerated cellular and organismal aging: oxidative stress, telomere length, and telomerase activity in PBMCs.
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/49/17312.full
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^ Women with 3 cats usually have higher levels of perceived stress than women with 3 kids.
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