When it comes to "uterine cold," many women should have heard of it. Uterine cold is a major killer of women's health and can lead to female infertility. So, how can women regulate uterine cold? Let's introduce it to you all below.
Four factors can lead to uterine cold
1. Constitution. Some women are naturally colder in constitution: their limbs are easily cold, they are particularly sensitive to the cooling climate, their face is paler than others, they prefer hot drinks and rarely feel thirsty, they are afraid of cold in winter but tolerant of heat in summer. A cold constitution is mostly caused by postnatal factors, such as living in a cold environment, having a preference for cold foods, or excessive labor and irritability damaging the body's yang energy... These are common problems that make the body偏寒 (lean towards cold). In addition, there are also genetic factors. Perhaps your parents have a constitution偏寒 (leaning towards cold), or when you were born, they were older, and their yang energy was gradually decreasing, which would directly write the code for a cold constitution into your genes.
2. Rapid weight loss. Whether it's through diet, exercise, or medication, the way to lose weight is to consume more than you intake, but it must be a relatively long process. If you achieve the goal of slimming in a very short time, you can only do so at the expense of your health. Rapid weight loss is nothing more than using harsh methods and abnormally expelling excess water and fat from the body. In the eyes of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), this is equivalent to losing a large amount of energy substances from the body in a short period of time, and cold evil is likely to take advantage of the weakness to attack the uterus.
3. Too much cold food. In the tradition of TCM health preservation, women's constitution is yin, so they should not be greedy for cold. Even in the hot summer, one should not overindulge in cold drinks, iced tea, melons, and other cold things, let alone those who hold ice cream in their hands all year round. After eating too many cold and raw foods, these foods enter the body and consume yang energy, leading to the internal generation of cold evil, which harms the uterus. Therefore, TCM's guidance on eating cold food mainly applies to women.
4. Abortion. The combination of sperm and egg and the growth of the fetus consume a large amount of energy substances from women, so some pregnant women may have a very uncomfortable body and a face full of spots. Abortion is equivalent to suddenly discarding all those energy substances, which consumes a large amount of the body's yang energy. If the recovery is not adequate, the yang energy is depleted for a long time, the uterus loses its warmth, and uterine cold follows.
Medicinal Diet Therapy for Uterine Cold
1. Black-bone Chicken Soup
Ingredients: 1 black-bone chicken, 9 grams each of Angelica sinensis (Dang Gui), Astragalus root (Huang Qi), and Poria (Fu Ling).
Method: Clean the chicken, remove the internal organs, place the herbs inside the chicken's abdomen and sew it up with thread. Cook it in a clay pot until done, remove the herb residue, add seasonings, and eat the meat and drink the soup, divided into 2-3 servings. Take 1 dose daily before menstruation for 3-5 consecutive days.
Effect: Strengthens the spleen and nourishes the heart, replenishes qi and nourishes blood. It is suitable for insufficient qi and blood leading to scanty, light-colored menstruation, dizziness, blurred vision, palpitations, sallow complexion, a feeling of emptiness in the lower abdomen, pale red tongue, and a thin pulse.
2. Braised Mutton with Angelica and Rehmannia
Ingredients: 500 grams of mutton, 15 grams each of Angelica sinensis (Dang Gui) and Rehmannia root (Sheng Di), 10 grams of dried ginger.
Method: Clean the mutton, cut it into pieces, and place it in a clay pot. Add the cleaned herbs along with an appropriate amount of soy sauce, salt, sugar, yellow wine, and clear water. Braise over low heat until the meat is tender. Can be taken regularly.
Effect: Warms the middle burner, tonifies deficiency, replenishes qi, and secures blood. It is suitable for excessive menstrual flow due to qi deficiency, with light color and thin texture, a lusterless complexion, fatigue and shortness of breath, laziness to speak, a pale tongue, and a weak and无力 (forceless) pulse.
3. Chicken Cooked with Motherwort
Ingredients: 1 chicken (preferably one with black bones and white feathers), 500g of Motherwort (Yi Mu Cao), divided into 4 parts, each soaked in wine, vinegar, ginger juice, and Ligusticum wallichii (Chuan Xiong) juice respectively, then stir-fried until dry.
Method: Place the prepared Motherwort into the chicken's cavity and cook with clear soup. The chicken can be eaten plain or taken with wine. The chicken bones and herb residue are to be baked dry, ground into a powder, mixed with 120g of Angelica root (Gui Shen), 60g of Dipsacus root (Xu Duan), and 18g of ginger, also ground into a powder. This is then made into honey pills, each weighing 9g. Take 1 pill in the morning, noon, and evening daily.
Effect: Mainly treats long-term infertility.
4. Saffron Fertility Egg
Ingredients: 1 egg, 1.5g of Saffron.
Method: Take 1 egg, make a small opening, place 1.5g of Saffron inside, stir well, and steam until cooked. Start taking the Saffron Fertility Egg the day after menstruation begins. Eat 1 egg per day for 9 consecutive days. Then, starting again the day after the next menstruation, continue this for 3-4 menstrual cycles.
Effect: Mainly treats infertility due to qi deficiency with blood stasis.