It was a standing room only crowd at an informative evening addressing health and wellness held on November 26 at La Isha in Lakewood. Hosted by Chava, a division of A TIME dedicated to women’s issues from birth through menopause, the event featured experts in the field tackling important topics not typically discussed in a public forum.
The evening opened with brief introductory remarks by A TIME’s medical consultant Vivi Moskowitz, director of member services Brany Rosen and HUG director Chumi Friedman. Dr. Eric Lehnes of Ocean Gynecological and Obstetrical Associates empowered the audience to take charge of their own health, offering a crash course on the workings of women’s bodies, noting that correcting even small irregularities can have a significant positive impact on reproductive health. Dr. Lehnes also discussed causes of infertility, menopause myths, societal and environmental conditions that can cause cancer and, underscoring the concept that knowledge is power, using preventive health care screening to circumvent larger medical issues.
Maternal-fetal medical specialist Dr. Todd Rosen of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School expounded on different categories of high-risk pregnancies, stressing the importance of preconception consultations as an effective means of identifying and treating potential problems. Dr. Rosen also emphasized the benefits of flu vaccines for pregnant women and offered a brief overview of ongoing research into preventing preterm births and controlling life-threatening postpartum bleeding. An informative 15 minute Q&A session had Dr. Lehnes and Dr. Rosen fielding audience inquiries on several topics, including repeat c-sections and whether low progesterone levels can cause miscarriages.
The final speaker of the evening, well-known lecturer and therapist Chani Juravel, ventured into the mental health arena, sharing strategies for building stronger marriages. Acknowledging that there are often times when spouses may view each other in less-than-positive lights, Mrs. Juravel suggested stepping back to look at the larger picture instead of fixating on relatively minor issues and rising to the challenge of embracing personal differences as the key to tremendous self-growth.
Organizers received tremendous feedback from the event, hearing from one woman who had been in therapy for a year and a half because of a problem that she thought was emotional. After listening to the medical presentations, the woman realized that the pain she had been living with in all likelihood stemmed from a physical cause.
Chava has run several events nationwide and the Lakewood event was just the first of several that have been scheduled in the area.
“The more we do these events, the more we realize how necessary they are, because women have questions that they may feel uncomfortable raising with their doctors,” noted Rosen. “When you have a forum like this, where people can ask questions in a respectful and Torah-true environment, we gain knowledge that allows us to take better care of ourselves.”
Sandy Eller is a freelance writer who writes for numerous websites, newspapers, magazines and private clients. She can be contacted at [email protected].
By Sandy Eller
