Our Natural Cleaners

Drew and I are lucky to have such wonderful mothers who helped us clean our new home as soon as we moved in (and thanks to those ceilings…not to mention that the superficial cleaning by the woman who lived there previously…there was plenty to clean). You won’t find the standard cleaners in our home. We don’t have a separate bottle of something for the toilet, and the sink, and the kitchen counters, nope! Whenever my mother or mother-in-law asked me what to use to start cleaning something my answer was (to their annoyance) vinegar and baking soda!

How to use vinegar and baking soda…FOR EVERYTHING

Vinegar is an acid (acetic acid to be precise). This makes vinegar great at breaking down grime while still being safe to inhale, touch, and heck even lick if you were so inclined. It is antimicrobial and is comparative to bleach in it’s efficiency (source) with being safer to handle. Vinegar is a GREAT window cleaner [spray vinegar on glass and wipe down with newspaper. Be aware it will probably get ink on white windows, but that’s easily wiped off with…guess what? MORE VINEGAR!]. If you’re worried about the smell (which if you’re using ‘traditional’ cleaners this point is kind of moot) it dissipates pretty quickly, I promise your home won’t be smelling like vinegar 24/7. It’s also a mold-killer. Spray it in the bathroom or other problem areas to help keep mold at bay.

Baking Soda is a base (sodium bicarbonate). It’s a great mini-abrasive. Combine it with some sort of solution (water, oil, etc) in different consistencies depending on how abrasive you need it to be. It is also a great deodorizer. Sprinkle it on the carpet, leave it for a bit, and vacuum it up. Leave an open box in the fridge. Add some to some smelly laundry. It’s also perfectly safe to handle.

What happens when you combine these two powerhouses?

They explode! Yeah, it’s not as exciting as it might sound. We’ve all seen the volcano at the science fair, the bubbly oozing lava. This is the reaction of baking soda and vinegar. For the chemistry nerds out there (too much Breaking Bad?) here’s the skinny on that lava:

Two things happen. First, the initial reaction of the acetic acid and the sodium bicarbonate produces sodium acetate and carbonic acid (NaHCO3 + HC2H3O2 → NaC2H3O2 + H2CO3). The second step to this (which is where the bubbles come in) is where the carbonic acid, the unstable little guy he is, decides to become dihydrogen oxide (the name water uses at fancy dinner parties) and carbon dioxide. So, when baking soda and vinegar meet, they neutralize each other (as acids and bases tend to do) and you’re left with water, salt, and carbon dioxide. Moral of the story: Don’t store vinegar and baking soda together for cleaning, because they lose their power.

BUT

Sometimes these two things together can actually be helpful! While the end-product of the reaction is essentially worthless (other than water being the universal solvent and salt being a bit abrasive) the reaction itself can be awesome-sauce for things such as drain cleaning. Pouring hot water and vinegar down the drain can help loosen and degrade grime. Chasing this with a sprinkle of baking soda and another splash of vinegar helps officially remove the hard-to-get-to grime that was just loosened. Chase that with some more hot water and voila! Clean drains that hopefully don’t smell like The Bog of Eternal Stench (kudos if you get the reference).

Honorable Mention

While we use baking soda and vinegar 90% of the time, there are some other key players that show their faces.

Hydrogen peroxide – Yeah buddy! This guy is magic. Dog just puke on your carpet? fugeddaboutit. This stuff is natural oxyclean and is especially great with fresh organic stains (blood, grass, puke). When it is reacting to something, it is essentially becoming oxygen and water. This stuff makes your whites whiter (including teeth – you’ll usually find it in toothpaste), your house cleaner, and your life easier. We use this as a mouthwash (1T diluted in 3T water every couple weeks), in our laundry, and as a stain remover. Combine this stuff with vinegar and you have an even more powerful disinfectant (this creates peracetic acid – spray each separately, do not store together).

Disclaimer: Do not mix chemicals unless you are sure about their safety. These are things I have looked into and use personally. Please don’t randomly mix any chemicals thinking they’ll be good together unless you KNOW how they will react.

References

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/science/vinegar-baking-soda-the-ultimate-cleanser?page=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_peroxide

FAM – not your mother’s birth control

Let’s talk sex…ish. Ever since humans have been having sex we’ve been coming up with ways to avoid pregnancy. Lamb intestine, spitting into a fogs mouth three times after doing the deed (I could not make this up), and the modern day condom. Here’s a fun video about the past, present, and future of birth control (sidenote: I ❤ SciShow).

Some fertility basics

Did you know that the woman herself is only fertile for 24-48 hours in her cycle? Yuuuup. Ovulation is the release of the egg, which only lives 24-48 hours.  It’s those tricksy sperm complicate things a bit. When a woman approaches ovulation her lady-bits make the place super comfy for sperm to hang out. It orders them pizza, cleans the sheets, and turns on the Xbox. (In reality the cervical mucus changes to help nourish sperm and allow them to last 5-7 days). So when on any other day the cervical mucus does not help support these guys, they die in a few hours. So, taking into consideration the lifespan of sperm in fertile cervical mucus and the lifespan of the egg during ovulation we can assume a woman is potentially fertile for 6-9 days (source).

Why I found FAM – Hormonal birth control

Hormonal birth control is a very popular go-to for pregnancy prevention. We all know someone whose on it, has been on it, and have probably even been on it ourselves. Hormonal birth control does two specific things (one or both):

1. It prevents the egg from being released for ovulation.
2. It makes the vaginal environment inhospitable to sperm. (source)

We all hear the warnings that we shouldn’t smoke, there’s an increased risk if you’re over 35, etc, etc. We know it’s been known to lower libido, that it can cause weight gain, and that it’s supposedly supposed to help prevent ovarian and endometrial cancer. We hear these things and chose to go on them anyways because it’s easier and “I can handle the side effects”. However, how many woman do you know that have done the pill, patch, ring musical chairs game? I know I was one of them. Many woman complain about feeling “off” and there is a possibility of it effecting your future fertility depending on when in your life you went on it (article).

Don’t get me wrong. Some people do well on hormonal birth control. Some people simply cannot have kids and this is a good option for them. My goal is not to prevent someone from using hormonal birth control if it’s their choice, but to instead give more information about it. Information I wish I had when I went on the pill 11 years ago at the tender age of 15. After learning more about hormonal birth control, I decided to come off it (sidenote: I probably would not been able to do this mentally if I wasn’t in a “comfortable” time in my life for having an ‘oops’ although now I am 100% trustworthy of this when done right).

FAM

So, now that I’ve brought you up to speed a bit, what exactly is this FAM and why should I care? Well if you haven’t already guessed, FAM stands for fertility awareness method and it is a way of preventing (AND planning) pregnancy (also called Natural Family Planning in religious circles). Let me start this off with a preface: FAM is NOT the rhythm/calendar method, but it does tend to get lumped in with it. The rhythm/calendar method assumes all woman have 28 day cycles and ovulate on CD (cycle day) 14. It does not consider annovulatory cycles (woman who do not ovulate) or any other oddities we women face on any given cycle. FAM is similarly as effective as condoms are:

• In one year with perfect use (meaning couples use condoms consistently and correctly at every act of sex), 98 percent of women relying on male condoms will remain pregnancy free. With typical use, 85 percent relying on male condoms will remain pregnancy free.(source)

The failure rate of fertility awareness varies widely depending on the system used to identify fertile days, the instructional method, and the population being studied. Some studies have found actual failure rates of 25% per year or higher. At least one study has found a failure rate of less than 1% per year with continuous intensive coaching and monthly review, and several studies have found actual failure rates of 2-3% per year.

When used correctly and consistently (i.e., perfect use) with ongoing coaching, under study conditions some studies have found some forms of FA to be 99% effective. (source)

The main aspect of FAM is tracking basal body temperature immediately after waking up in the morning. What does that have to do with fertility? I’m glad you asked.

So. A woman’s cycle is broken up into two general phases: follicular phase (pre-ovulation) and the luteal phase (post-ovulation).

• The follicular phase is the first phase of the cycle (which begins the day you get your period). This phase is “run” by estrogen.
• The luteal phase is the second phase of the cycle (which begins the day after ovulation). This phase is “run” by progesterone.

Now, the thing that is awesome-sauce is that progesterone causes basal body temperature to rise. So by tracking temperatures we are able to pinpoint the day of ovulation (the day before the temperature spike). Of course there are nuances for some people (example: some people are “slow-risers” which means it takes some time for their temp to spike). This is essential for people trying to avoid pregnancy. 3 days after ovulation is confirmed the woman is infertile and cannot get pregnant.

The second piece of the puzzle is cervical mucus (what a lovely word). Remember when I mentioned the sperm-hotel that is created before ovulation? Well, there is a way to tell how well set up those spermies really are. There are different degrees of cervical mucus (I know, right?). Tracking when CM begins to be fertile (which essentially is when it’s anything other than “dry”) will determine when a woman’s fertile phase begins. Something to note for those who are die-hard pregnancy avoiders is that it is possible to be fertile on your period, unlikely, but possible.

Other info

You can also see how by knowing when you’re fertile and infertile also helps achieve pregnancy when the time comes. Win-win. The “downside” to this method is that during the fertile phase a alternative method of contraception (or an alternative method of getting frisky) is required.

I would think this is obvious, but this does not protect against STDs. If you’re at risk, or have an STD yourself, this probably is not your method.

Helpful tools

Charting can be complicated and tiresome when done on paper. There are helpful gadgets that can make this much easier.

LadyComp/Pearly – This is a neat little device with a thermometer. It takes your BBT every morning and automatically gives you a green, yellow, or red light to indicate your current fertility. (Green is not-fertile so it’s a bit trying-to-avoid biased…but you can still use it when trying to conceive). This is one of the simplest ways to use FAM. No cervical mucus or anything else to track. For more information about LadyComp visit their website.

OvuView/Fertility Friend/TCOYF online/Kindara – These are a few of the many period/fertility trackers that can be found as smartphone apps (TCOYF is an online site). We have the darn things on us all the time, might as well use them for easy fertility tracking while we’re at it! They usually can help you predict upcoming periods and automatically pinpoint your ovulation date. OvuView is my personal favorite. It’s pretty, easy, and accurate.

If you’re interested in learning more about FAM I suggest you check out the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler, MPH. This little post is not nearly enough run down for someone to start using this method “safely” and this is the book of all books on this method. Seriously…even if you don’t plan on using this method for prevention or achievement, this book is just awesome for learning about the cycle and all the neat little things. I’m a fangirl.

Rant

I am very interested in human sexuality and health. FAM strums all my crunchy, healthy chords and then some. I’m glad I stumbled upon it. However it also makes me angry. Not FAM itself, but that knowledge like this isn’t more well known. Why is this not being taught in health class? This is legit sexual reproduction knowledge. This is science. I feel kind of cheated truth be told. I feel this is knowledge every woman should have (and I hope I’m not grasping when I also include them men in this). It seems we’re all wandering around with only partial knowledge of our own bodies when the information is easily graspable. It just makes me sad. You can be assured that my children will know these things.

/Rant