The catalyst for the Seventh Woman Foundation came from the NIH July curtailment of segments of the Women’s Health Initiative. We realized then how frightfully clear it was that since the 1950’s, women’s hormonal health has been compromised. And, it is apparent, hormonal effects are still not clearly articulated in mainstream medicine. Three women who wanted to make a difference in the status quo dreamed and created the Seventh Woman Foundation, a charitable 501(c) (3) in 2002. We were ordinary women—an aviation consultant, a video producer, and an entrepreneur in women’s skin care products from Washington DC, Tennessee, Colorado. Since 2003 others have joined us, doctors and others—advocates for women’s health all. Our first priority is to help women become aware that they have choices—and to help them take full responsibility for their own health by giving them access to important information—especially about hormone balance and breast cancer. To that end, our foundation holds dear the “picture is worth a thousand words” philosophy exemplified in our visual learning tools, and this website where visual takes precedence over verbal on every page.
Eight years on from our beginnings, the Seventh Woman Foundation is witnessing a major shift in attitudes towards women’s health and the hormonal links to our physical and emotional wellbeing. The trend towards hormone rebalancing and natural treatment approaches to symptoms, disorders and diseases is taking hold. Breast cancer rates are not rising as precipitously as they were, and there is a budding wellness vs. illness model in medicine that may well transform women’s health and longevity in our lifetime. The hope we have carried with us from the start continues to breathe life and health into the Seventh Woman Foundation. There is good reason to believe that soon the seventh woman may never become a shadowy figure in our midst.