OB/GYN

Prenatal testing for Down syndrome is not a verdict

Conditions and Diseases

June 7, 2026

Recently, a popular YouTuber and his wife shared a deeply personal and painful decision with their large online audience. After announcing their pregnancy earlier in 2026, routine screening tests indicated a high likelihood that their baby had Down syndrome, also known as Trisomy 21. They reportedly followed up with amniocentesis, a diagnostic test that confirmed the diagnosis. In an emotional video, they reacted to the results live on camera, clearly …

How to read IVF success rates before choosing a clinic

Mark P. Leondires, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 5, 2026

For the first time in American history, more than 100,000 babies were born through in vitro fertilization (IVF) in a single year.

According to data released in March 2026 by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), 100,158 IVF babies were born in the United States in 2024, across 449,772 reported treatment cycles at 364 fertility clinics nationwide. Behind each of those births is a patient who faced uncertainty, made …

Leaving insurance-based practice while burned out is a trap

Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, MD

Physician

June 4, 2026

During and after the pandemic, I was actively looking for a non-clinical position. Despite my love of medicine and two decades as a partner in a busy, prestigious OB/GYN private practice, I would have left clinical medicine entirely if the right opportunity had come along. That is how depleted I was. That is how broken the system had become for me.

It didn’t come along. Eventually, I stopped waiting for an …

Pregnant resident discrimination nearly cost me everything

Elham N. Samani, MD

Physician

June 1, 2026

I have delivered hundreds of babies. I have held the hands of women in their most terrifying and most joyful moments. I have spent my entire adult life becoming the kind of doctor who shows up, completely, compassionately, and without hesitation, for my patients. What I never imagined was that one day, bleeding and pregnant and alone in a call room at 21 weeks, I would be the one who …

Postpartum lactation support is a health care gap

Maddie Beans

Conditions and Diseases

May 29, 2026

Feeding an infant is often described in the language of choice. Breast or bottle. Preference or plan. It is framed as something intimate and personal, even private. Yet in clinical reality, especially in the earliest weeks after birth, feeding is also a physiological process that depends on maternal recovery, access to care, and structured medical support. When that support is missing, what appears to be a personal decision begins to …

Polycystic ovary syndrome is more than ovarian

Oluyemisi Famuyiwa, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 24, 2026

The name polycystic ovary syndrome may have unintentionally narrowed how medicine understood one of the most common endocrine disorders affecting women. The ovaries were visible. The deeper physiology was not.

For decades, the syndrome was largely framed around irregular ovulation, infertility, excess androgen symptoms, and the characteristic “string of pearls” appearance seen on ultrasound. Yet many patients experienced something far broader long before medicine fully acknowledged it. They struggled not only …

Why perimenopause insomnia hurts metabolic health

Isabella Soreca, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 22, 2026

Ask most physicians when perimenopause begins and they will point to the menstrual cycle: irregular periods, shortened cycles, the first hints of hormonal flux. Ask most women and they will say the same. We have built an entire cultural narrative around the period as the harbinger. But for a significant number of women, perimenopause announces itself first at 3 a.m. Not with a hot flash. Not with missed bleeding. With …

Social media told her to abort her Turner syndrome baby

Stephanie Waggel, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 22, 2026

Two of my recent teaching topics with medical students have been people taking medical advice from social media and the rise of “wild births,” where babies receive no medical care whatsoever. Then I opened one of my Facebook moms’ groups and saw a pregnant woman post that her baby’s genetic screening came back positive for Turner syndrome. Immediately, strangers in the comments started telling her to abort. Not physicians. Not …

How physician burnout impacts modern health care

Khai Ling Tan, MD

Physician

May 21, 2026

My daughter had been home sick for three days. Not the kind of sick that keeps you in bed, but the kind that lingers just enough to keep you home, well enough to be bored. She was restless, observant, and thinking. She is 10.

Her dad stayed home with her the first day. I took the second. By the third day, I went back to work. I arranged my schedule so …

The exam question OB/GYNs were never taught to ask

Michael Reed, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 20, 2026

Something is happening in women’s health care. Perimenopause is finally being discussed openly. Vaginal estradiol has entered mainstream conversation. Testosterone therapy for women is no longer confined to niche clinics or whispered discussions. Across medicine and social media alike, women are asking new questions about tissue health, sexual function, intimacy, discomfort, sensation, and quality of life. And perhaps more importantly, they are no longer accepting silence as an answer.

These conversations …

What no one tells you about fertility, from a doctor

Oluyemisi Famuyiwa, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 10, 2026

An excerpt from The Quest for Fertility.

Prologue: a quiet place of hope

Even in the stillness, life is quietly unfolding.

There’s a small butterfly garden tucked away in Wheaton Regional Park, a place I’ve long considered sacred. It isn’t grand or loud; it doesn’t demand attention. You step into a soft netted enclosure surrounded by blooms so vivid they almost seem unreal. Inside, monarchs and swallowtails drift lazily through the air, …

The emotional impact of infertility is grief unspoken

Oluyemisi Famuyiwa, MD

Conditions and Diseases

May 7, 2026

Long before in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics, fertility apps, hormone testing, or egg freezing, women understood that fertility carried social meaning far beyond biology.

In 19th-century Yorubaland, a woman named Efunsetan Aniwura rose to become one of the most powerful figures in Ibadan history. She was wealthy, influential, politically connected, and held the prestigious title of Iyalode, a leadership position reserved for prominent women in society. Yet historical accounts and Yoruba …

Why individualized menopause care matters today

Kari Waddell, FNP

Conditions and Diseases

May 7, 2026

In the past, women in menopause were brushed aside and told that their symptoms were “just stress” or a “natural part of aging.” Implicit in this message was the expectation that women were to push through this transition and endure its symptoms on their own without support. Now, the pendulum has swung and this midlife transition is finally getting some attention. The problem now is that this newfound medical attention …

Why systemic endometriosis requires whole-body care

Christine N. Metz, PhD

Conditions and Diseases

May 5, 2026

There have been unanswered questions about endometriosis for as long as it has been identified as a medical condition. We do not know yet why an estimated one in 10 women of reproductive age worldwide develop this often painful, chronic condition while others do not. We do not have a single, successful non-surgical treatment for endometriosis, characterized by lesions that mimic the tissue of the endometrial lining of …

The continuum of fertility care: Why IVF is not the only option

Scott Morin

Conditions and Diseases

April 22, 2026

At a time when one in five married American couples experience infertility, and one in three American men have a low sperm count, concerns around fertility and conception have led millions to seek solutions. But family building is rarely a linear process, and for every individual or couple able to successfully conceive on the first try, there are just as many who may seem to be doing everything right without …

IVF insurance coverage depends on your ZIP code

Laurel A. Coons, PhD

Conditions and Diseases

April 22, 2026

Two patients can have the same infertility diagnosis, need the same treatment, and see the same specialist. Yet one may move forward with insurance coverage while the other is left staring at a bill for tens of thousands of dollars. In the United States, that difference is often not medical. It is geography. As a biomedical scientist, I’ve seen how evidence should guide care. Yet for infertility, your ZIP code …

The deadly reality of eclampsia and maternal mortality in Nigeria

Dr. Mansur Auwal Sani

Conditions and Diseases

April 22, 2026

Eclampsia is one of the most severe complications of pregnancy. It occurs when a woman with preeclampsia, a condition characterized by dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy, develops seizures. In well-resourced health systems, preeclampsia is usually detected early and treated long before seizures develop. But in many parts of Nigeria, especially rural communities in the North, women often arrive at hospitals only after convulsions begin. By then, the disease has …

How rural health care access impacts maternal mortality

Alyssa Sterner

Health Policy

April 20, 2026

Rural health clinics (RHCs) are Medicaid-funded community-based interventions that significantly improve maternal health in rural areas by increasing access to care. A study done in Egypt, an extremely rural country, showed that community clinics for rural health provided evidence-based interventions that have drastically lowered complication rates during pregnancy. Complications during pregnancy dropped from 38.1 percent to 15.1 percent, and postpartum complications from 81.7 percent to 7.0 percent. Although these solutions …

What to expect at your first gynecologic visit

Callia Georgoulis

Conditions and Diseases

April 17, 2026

For many adolescent girls, the first visit to a gynecologist is surrounded by anxiety, embarrassment, and misinformation. Stories shared among peers, exaggerated portrayals online, and a general lack of education about reproductive health often lead young patients to expect invasive exams or uncomfortable procedures. In reality, the first gynecologic visit is rarely about procedures. Instead, it represents one of the earliest opportunities in medicine to build trust, introduce preventive care, …

Debunking 4 myths about fertility treatments for women of color

Ilana Ressler, MD

Physician

March 23, 2026

Regina Townsend, founder of The Broken Brown Egg, writes that “trying to decide if you can emotionally afford the cost of building a Black or Brown family in a world that is concurrently showing you how low they are valued adds additional weight to an already heavy situation.”

Townsend emphasizes the importance of recognizing the lived experiences of women of color: “Infertility doesn’t see color, but my color …