Tonight: three doctors whose patients died under Texas’s abortion ban are facing (minimal) consequences, proof that women who use Ozempic get judged more harshly, and some good news for ovarian cancer.

— Meghan McCarthy

TEXAS DOCTORS GOT 8 HOURS OF CONTINUING ED. TWO WOMEN DIED. // The Texas Medical Board has disciplined three doctors after ProPublica’s reporting found unnecessary pregnancy deaths under the state’s abortion ban. One doctor sent an 18-year-old home twice while she was actively infected and septic, then required two ultrasounds confirming fetal demise before moving her to the ICU. She died with the fetus still in her womb. Another withheld a D&C from a woman hemorrhaging during a miscarriage; she bled to death. The board’s penalty for each: 8 hours of continuing education. As one of the spouses said: “What kind of justice is this for Porsha?”

MIFEPRISTONE FOUND ITS WAY TO (NON-ABORTION BAN STATE) PHARMACIES. // After FDA removed the requirement that mifepristone be dispensed in person at a clinic, pharmacy fills spiked from roughly 18 users a month to more than 2,700, driven almost entirely by mail order. But 99% of those fills came from states where abortion and telehealth are both legal. In states with restrictions, the policy change barely moved the needle. Researchers say the data shows exactly what would be lost if courts or FDA reimpose the in-person rule.

THE GLP-1 JUDGMENT IS REAL FOR WOMEN // Women who lose weight using GLP-1 medications like Ozempic or Wegovy are judged more harshly than those who lose weight through diet and exercise, according to a study of 402 women. “Shortcut” beliefs drove higher fat phobia, more blame, and greater desire for social distance from the GLP-1 user. The researchers also found that white women using GLP-1s faced more stigma than Black women in the same scenario, an unexpected finding the authors say warrants further study.

WHAT DOULAS ACTUALLY HELP WITH (AND WHAT’S STILL UNCLEAR) // A systematic review of 21 clinical trials in JAMA Network Open found the strongest evidence for doula care improving maternal anxiety and breastfeeding initiation, with emerging data on better postpartum follow-up. Evidence for C-section reduction and pain management was more mixed. The review also flagged that most studies underrepresented Black and Indigenous patients, who are among those facing the worst maternal outcomes, and that few examined doula care beyond birth.

OVARIAN CANCER JUST GOT SOME BETTER NUMBERS // At the Society of Gynecologic Oncology annual meeting, two experimental drugs helped shrink tumors in 62–67% women with ovarian cancer that had already stopped responding to standard chemotherapy — a notoriously hard stage to treat. A third drug, designed to restart a cancer-suppressing protein that mutates in some tumors, shrank tumors in 44% of patients who’d already been through multiple rounds of treatment. All three are moving into larger trials.

Here are the most interesting items we saw this week in women’s health:

🚫 The Trump administration has moved to kill a teen pregnancy prevention program while conservatives publicly complained that teen birth rates are falling. On Fox News, analyst Marc Siegel called it a “problem” that teens are having fewer babies. Anti-contraception messaging, clinicians say, is already reshaping what patients say in exam rooms.

🧬 Male and female brains express thousands of genes differently, and it may explain a lot. NIH researchers found more than 3,000 genes with sex-biased activity across six brain regions. Many overlap with genetic variants tied to ADHD, schizophrenia, depression, and Alzheimer’s — conditions that affect men and women at different rates.

🤰 Montana approved Medicaid reimbursement for doulas, then reversed course. The rollback hit especially hard on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, where the nearest hospital that delivers babies is 100 miles away. Doulas there are still working, mostly unpaid, filling the gaps the system keeps leaving behind.

TOP CLICKED STORIES THIS WEEK

1. Largest study of pregnancy sickness uncovers six new genetic links — EurekAlert

2. New BSC study reveals, for the first time, that the female immune system changes much more than that of men with age — EurekAlert

3. This Northern Cheyenne Doula Was About To Start Getting Paid — Then Medicaid Cuts Hit — KFF Health News

4. Longer Reproductive Span Linked With Slower Rates of Cognitive Decline — The Menopause Society

5. Recovery of Pregnancy-Related Death Ratios After COVID — Obstetrics & Gynecology

6. Sex differences in human brain gene expression may shape disease risk — EurekAlert

Tonight: the Trump administration wants to eliminate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program while conservatives complain teen birth rates are falling, what the UK just admitted about how medicine treats women, and more.

— Meghan McCarthy

THEY ACTUALLY WANT MORE TEEN PREGNANCIES // The Trump administration has moved to eliminate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program — which it called “radical indoctrination” last year — at the same time conservatives are publicly complaining that teen birth rates are declining. On Fox News, analyst Marc Siegel called it a “problem” that teens are having fewer babies. Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller, tweeted that hormonal birth control is “poison” and that women’s “biological destiny is to have babies — not slave behind desks chasing careers while our civilization dies.” Clinicians told the National Memo that anti-contraception disinformation is already reshaping what patients say in exam rooms.

THE UK NAMED “MEDICAL MISOGYNY” A POLICY PROBLEM // The British government renewed its Women’s Health Strategy this week with explicit language about eliminating long-standing patterns of women being dismissed or ignored by the health system — and said providers could have funding withheld based on patient feedback. The strategy also commits to streamlining gynecology care to cut wait times for conditions like endometriosis, which now takes an average of nine years and four months to diagnose in England. New pain relief standards for invasive procedures like IUD fittings and hysteroscopies are also included, addressing what the Health Secretary said was decades of inadequate care.

THE PANDEMIC MATERNAL MORTALITY SPIKE DIDN’T END EQUALLY // A study in Obstetrics & Gynecology tracked 8,298 pregnancy-related deaths from 2018 to 2024 and found that while overall rates have largely returned to pre-pandemic levels, they remain significantly elevated for Black mothers. Maternal deaths rose more than 60% during the pandemic peak, from around 20 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019 to 33 in 2021. Later postpartum deaths (those occurring beyond six weeks after delivery) are also still elevated across groups, a pattern researchers say warrants urgent policy attention.

YOUR REPRODUCTIVE HISTORY MAY SHAPE HOW YOUR BRAIN AGES // A large study published in Menopause using more than 30 years of data from over 14,000 women found that a longer reproductive lifespan, i.e. the years between first period and menopause, was associated with slower cognitive decline in later life. The finding adds to evidence that cumulative estrogen exposure may matter for brain health. One notable counterpoint in the same data: hormone therapy use, including within 10 years of menopause, was not associated with cognitive benefit in this analysis, which the authors say supports current guidelines against using HRT specifically to prevent dementia.

MALE AND FEMALE BRAINS EXPRESS GENES DIFFERENTLY AND IT MAY MATTER FOR DISEASE // NIH researchers analyzed gene activity in each cell in six certain areas of the brain in 30 adults. They found that biological sex explains only a small fraction of overall gene expression variation, but more than 3,000 genes showed some degree of sex-biased activity in at least one region. And many of those genes overlap with genetic variants linked to ADHD, schizophrenia, depression, and Alzheimer’s. The authors are careful to note that some of these differences may reflect socialization and experience rather than biology alone, but the findings suggest that sex-specific patterns in brain gene expression could help explain why psychiatric and neurological conditions affect men and women differently.