Feds to women: stay healthy and breed

Posted by Deanna Zandt at 6:19 AM on May 18, 2006.

Ladies of America: It's time to learn about your importance in the the national healthcare debate. Do we as a country care what's going on with your body because you're a person? Hell, no! It's actually because you're an incubator.

Via Bitch Ph.D. this morning, there's a Washington Post (remember that bastion of liberal media?) seriously introducing some new federal health guidelines to ask all women after their first period to consider themselves pre-pregnant:

New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.

Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.

While most of these recommendations are well known to women who are pregnant or seeking to get pregnant, experts say it's important that women follow this advice throughout their reproductive lives, because about half of pregnancies are unplanned and so much damage can be done to a fetus between conception and the time the pregnancy is confirmed.

There's absolutely no question that these guidelines are a good idea for a healthy pregnancy. But what about the notion that these things are a good idea for women's health in general, or even people at large? Why this designation of "pre-pregnant" if not only to publicly designate the woman's breeding role in the society?

UPDATE: More on the subject of the report itself, and the WaPo's interpretation of it.

UPDATE 2: A couple of folks pointed out that I should have been more clear after posting the above update, and they're right. The post that I point to there talks about how the actual CDC report is pretty standard medical advice; it's the Washington Post's interpretation of it that's really messed up. Thus, as Bitch PhD neatly sums up: CDC = okay, WaPo = creepy and sexist.

Deanna Zandt is a contributing editor at AlterNet.