That was my immediate reaction to the first sentence of this post by Dr. Natacha Pierre.

Fortunately for all of us, Dr. Pierre, an integrative medicine physician, understands there is no separation of mind and body.

Heads up: This article may trigger discomfort for some over slavery and contemporary racial issues. Feel free to skip it and hold your own beliefs, or give it some serious thought. But I recommend the latter, because just about every one of us has experienced, or will experience, life-altering tragedies that impact our souls and bodies forever; learning about how that works opens doors to healing no matter who we are.

You know that part of your brain that says something reflexively, a sort of ‘brainstem-tongue’ connection that shows up without conscious thought? The quick response that can get you in trouble but is more often exactly right than wrong? And how sometimes you have to stop and think what it is your brain knew that made it respond that way?

That’s what happened to me when I saw the very first sentence of a post by Natacha Pierre, MD: “…80% of Black women will develop uterine fibroids before turning 50.”

Your Womb Is Not A Battlefield

“I’d have fibroids, too, if I were a Black woman.”

No thinking or pondering. My brain immediately reacted. Then I had to stop and parse my instinctive reaction. Bear with me here.

I’ve been in women’s health for decades, so my brain long ago learned fibroids—non-cancerous growths in the uterus—limit fertility, cause miscarriages and premature birth, and are the most common reason for hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus). And Dr. Pierre’s stats are right on: Black women are diagnosed with fibroids roughly three times as frequently as white women, develop them younger, and tend to experience larger and more numerous fibroids that cause more severe symptoms.

In Western medicine¹, we focus on organ and system specialization: OB-Gyn/reproductive, orthopedics/bones and spine, neuroscience/brain and nervous system. For problems below the neck, we don’t look above the neck—the brain—for causes. Part of that is because we know so little about how the brain functions. We know the anatomy—the parts—of the brain well, but function is a whole different issue, particularly any function that might impact an organ below the neck that isn’t part of the nervous system.

We can learn the name of something called a computer, but that doesn’t tell us how it works.

It’s only in this century that we’ve had access to technology like fMRI² to actually see the brain working—important for a country focused on “show me.” A great example of how little we know about the brain is that we don’t actually even know how anesthesia works. We can tweak anesthesia to get different effects, and we know a little about the physiology…but the foundational elements of how it actually works are still largely a mystery. So in Western Medicine, the brain has been viewed as an organ unrelated to the rest of the body, the realm of neuroscience or psychiatry.

But the ‘back’ of your mind, and mine, knows brain and body are intimately related. It’s as simple as falling or banging a body part when we’re stressed; looking back, we often even know it was because of stress. Particularly in one of my past lives, when I was a nurse-midwife, I saw the power of the brain over the body over and over. My strongest memories of that were women who were physically at the point in labor where they could push the baby out, an urge so strong it’s almost impossible to resist. But some stayed at that stage for hours, clearly somehow resisting that primal urge, as they resolved their anger about abusive husbands, or impregnation by rape, or their worthiness to be a mother after a previous abortion, or another huge unresolved life event.

Mind over body. I couldn’t explain it, but it was impossible to not see it. And my brain learned.

Why “I would have fibroids, too” was my brain’s knowledge talking.

We know fibroids can limit fertility and cause miscarriages. Yes, fibroids are physical, but if the brain can develop methods of preventing pregnancy and birth over time, fibroids would be right there at the top of the list on how to do that.

If I’d been a Black woman during slavery, when Black women were bred to produce more slaves, two centuries before the invention of reliable birth control, I suspect my brain would have done anything to prevent my body from putting a child into that world. And the same for now, if for different reasons: documented limited access for Black women to birth control in a country that turns its back on our appalling Black maternal death rate. And that’s before even considering the odds of my child becoming a George Floyd, Stephon Clark, Atatiana Jefferson, or already this year, a Christian Black or a William McNeil Jr.

If you’re a Black mom or dad, the only question about The Talk is “when,” not “if.”

Yes, my unconscious brain might well see fibroids as an out.

Dr. Pierre, fibroids, Black women, and integrative medicine.

Dr. Pierre has had a lot of life experiences in four countries. She’s a board certified pediatrician, but she is also passionate about using what we’re now calling “integrative medicine,” after attempting other names (alternative, complementary) for the use—integration—of Eastern medicine mind-body approaches.

Studies like this one are now showing up daily in Western research: Mind-body connection is built into brain. And that’s why Dr. Pierre’s approach to fibroid management for Black women caught my eye.

You have to start somewhere outside the uterus to deal with decades of hard-wired trauma and the resultant weathering—when humans age quickly, become sicker, and die younger. Dr. Pierre does; kudos to her.

And regardless of your ethnicity or cultural heritage, her comments on trauma-informed healing will almost certainly be relevant to something in your past.

What do you think?

1. Western medicine originated a couple thousand years ago in Greece, and was the foundation of medical practices in “the West”—Europe and northern America. Eastern medicine originated earlier, perhaps 4000 years ago, largely arising in China (TCM) and India (ayurveda). At its most basic, Western medicine generally treats symptoms with drugs, surgery or technology. Eastern medicine systems like TCM and ayurveda treat the cause, with no separation of mind and body. So while the dismissive “it’s all in your mind” has been a handy Western fallback when the single organ approach failed,* ironically, that was likely often correct. Here’s more on differences between Western and Eastern medicine. *Especially for women who have those ‘weird’—AKA non-male—body parts. (Yes…sarcasm.)

2. fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, is a technique used to measure brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow. It's a type of MRI that focuses on activity rather than just structure. By observing which brain regions become more active during specific tasks, fMRI helps researchers and clinicians understand how the brain functions and identify potential issues. It wasn’t invented until 1992, and wasn’t widely available outside major medical centers until about a decade ago. We’re very new to this.