Stop Calling Women Hormonal

My son Jack was born in London a month before his due date. The pediatrician said he was fine and we could go home.

A few minutes later another doctor came in and asked to draw blood to try to figure out why Jack was premature. I refused, because we had already been given the go-ahead to leave. I heard the doctor tell the nurses to mark in my medical record, “Mother refuses treatment for her son.”

“I’m not refusing treatment! I’m refusing a needless test!” I said from my bed.

To which she mumbled, “Write down, ‘Mother is hormonal.’”

And so began my rant. I stormed out of my room, dressed only in my husband’s white T-shirt and nestling my 12-hour-old son to my chest, and hollered after the fleeing doctor, “I am not hormonal!”

The truth is I was hormonal. I had just given birth, so my progesterone (the hormone that maintained my pregnancy) had plummeted and my oxytocin (the hormone that squeezed my uterus to get the baby out, got the milk flowing and fostered mother-baby bonding) had skyrocketed.

But that’s not what the doctor meant when she used the word “hormonal.” She meant I was a woman going off the rails.

In 1939, James E. King, the president of the American Association of Obstetricians, Gynecologists and Abdominal Surgeons, devoted part of his presidential address to hormones and women’s craziness, or as he called it, their “peculiarities” and “inconsistencies.” He said hormone therapy, which was brand new at the time, would not only treat conditions like menstrual irregularities and infertility but would also help women manage their emotions and make them prettier (estrogen would supposedly bring back aging women’s youthful splendor). Then he concluded with this snide remark:

“Will she, as some timid souls fear, mentally and physically dominate and enslave us as we in the past enslaved her? Probably not; so long as she is controlled by her reproductive glands, she will remain basically the same lovable and gracious homemaker.”

The ebb and flow of hormones shape all of us — men and women — physically and emotionally, from before birth to death. My newborn son was hormonal. His pituitary gland let loose a chemical cascade, beginning with “helper” hormones that stimulated other glands to release their hormones. One pituitary hormone was firing up his adrenal gland to release cortisol, which would help him deal with stressful situations. Another one was causing the release of a thyroid hormone to promote brain development and metabolism.

My husband was also hormonal, churning with insulin, testosterone and estrogen (yes, men have estrogen). If you believe a recent study that showed that child care lowers testosterone among men, he may have been on his way to a hormonal dip.

Sure, hormones have been shown to cause mood swings (making both women and men cranky or tired or hungry). And we’ve known about PMS — premenstrual syndrome — ever since Dr. Robert Frank described “premenstrual tension” in 1931. Lots of women say they feel edgier in the days leading up to their periods. But the link isn’t clear-cut. A review of PMS studies published in Gender Medicine in 2012 found that nearly 40 percent of 47 studies did not show a tie between periods and bad moods.

Despite knowing all this, I, too, am guilty of throwing around the word “hormonal.” When my boys grew into teenagers and responded with grunts, I thought, “Must be their hormones.” When my daughters were the same age, I dismissed their snarky comments the same way. Sure, the girls could have had PMS and the boys could have been experiencing testosterone surges, which have been tied to behavioral changes like increased risk-taking and aggression. But more likely, my nagging was just irking them, and it had nothing to do with their ovaries, testes or pituitary gland.

Hormones prompt growth, hunger and libido, and help break down sugar and build bones and do all the things we need them to do that make us the living, breathing, moody creatures that we are. They are also tied to the immune system in ways scientists are just beginning to unravel. Investigators have long wondered whether differences between male and female hormones make women more susceptible to autoimmune disorders, such as lupus, but also more likely to fend off infections.

If you suffer from a dearth of a hormone (say, insulin, if you have diabetes), you may need to replenish the supplies with synthetic hormones. But for the most part, the body does this automatically. On a day-to-day basis, our hormones are so interconnected with one another and with our immune system and our brain chemical signals that blaming this hormone or that one for one nasty comment is not just simplistic but also underestimates the chemical stew that makes us.

Had my oxytocin been lower and my progesterone higher that day at the hospital all those years ago, I still would not have wanted that doctor to prick my baby’s hand. Hormones do a lot. They don’t make women stupid.