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FERTILITY
Alabama Republicans Try to Bring Back IVF But Avoid Personhood Question They Created
What: Republican lawmakers in Alabama’s state legislature are racing to pass a bill that would allow IVF procedures to resume after the state supreme court ruled frozen embryos were “extrauterine children.”
Why it matters: There’s a catch—the legislation doesn’t address whether the embryo is considered a person or not (a belief that is key to many anti-abortion activists). It simply says IVF clinics are protected from any criminal or civil charges.
Source: New York Times
POSTPARTUM
Therapy Offered By Non-Experts Reduces Postpartum Anxiety, Depression in Clinical Trial
What: An NIH-funded clinical trial found significant success with a therapy intervention to treat anxiety during pregnancy, reducing the likelihood of postpartum anxiety and depression by 70%. The trial of over 750 women in Pakistan gave the treatment group a cognitive behavioral therapy-based intervention, offered by practitioners who had no clinical experience. Over six sessions, the women “learned to identify anxious thoughts and behaviors, such as thoughts about possible miscarriage, and to practice replacing them with helpful thoughts and behaviors.”
Why it matters: As the National Institute of Mental Health Director Joshua Gordon put it: “In low resource settings, it can be challenging for women to access mental health care due to a global shortage of trained mental health specialists …This study shows that non-specialists could help to fill this gap, providing care to more women during this critical period.”
Source: NIH
BIRTH CONTROL
Love Is Blind’s Birth Control Discourse
What: Last week we had Amy Schumer’s endometriosis (turned Cushings Disease!), this week we have the Netflix show Love is Blind delving into hormonal birth control. A contestant on the show (people date without seeing the other person, some end up getting engaged) shocked her fiancée by not being on the pill: “It was more so what I would be putting into my body that I just didn’t feel comfortable with…Fully support it for any woman who decides to do it, I feel like women should be empowered to do what they feel like is best for them. But in that moment I just felt like I didn’t want to do that. So we explored other options.”
Why it matters: More women are questioning hormonal birth control’s side effects, expect this (wildly popular) show to bring it even more in the discourse—especially for men who have never contemplated having to think about long-term birth control.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
ABORTION ACCESS
Data Shows (Again) That Abortions Didn’t Drop After Roe
What: Another study has found that overturning Roe vs. Wade did not really change the number of abortions in America. A report from the Society for Family Planning found around 85,000 abortions took place every month in the summer of last year, compared to nearly 87,000 monthly average in 2022 before Roe was overturned. Researchers also found that one in every six abortions was done with abortion pills via telemedicine.
Why it matters: The data shows that the demand is there for women to have control over their bodies and lives, and they will find a way to get the health care they need.
Source: Associated Press
MENOPAUSE
Menopause Is Equal Parts Change for Your Brain + Ovaries
What: WBUR’s On Point does a deep dive interview with neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Mosconi on the science of menopause. Mosconi has a book coming out titled “The Menopause Brain,” and explains how Alzheimer’s research got her into studying menopause in the first place (plus much, much more.)
Why it matters: As Mosconi explains, “…most people realize that menopause is associated with something changing in the function of the ovaries. The ovaries running out of follicles, your menstrual cycle ending, the end of fertility. But we have completely lost track of the fact that menopause is defined as a neurological, as a neuroendocrine transition state, which means that your brain, your neurological system, is changing together with your endocrine system, with your ovaries and your hormones. So this transition, in fact, impacts the brain just as much as it impacts the ovaries.”
Source: WBUR
METABOLISM + WEIGHT
Mixing Weight Loss Drugs With Exercise Seems to Keep Pounds Off
What: Most studies have found people on weight loss medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro regain most (but not all) of the weight once they stop the medication. But a new study found that “people who exercised while using a weight-loss drug kept off far more of their weight after quitting the medication than people who didn’t work out, and they maintained more muscle.”
Why it matters: This could be a low-cost way for many to keep the weight off permanently.
Source: Washington Post
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