Tonight: denied lifesaving care in Arkansas, the postpartum cliff, and more.

— Meghan McCarthy

SHE CALLED THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE. ARKANSAS STILL WOULDN'T HELP.

ProPublica's Kavitha Surana documents how Emily Waldorf, a 38-year-old physical therapist at the Arkansas hospital where she had worked for six years, spent five days being denied care for an inevitable miscarriage. During that time her cervix was open to a potentially deadly infection, and despite meeting with the hospital CEO, calling the governor's office, and retaining a lawyer, she was refused care in her home state. She had to be transferred by ambulance to Kansas, she nearly died when her placenta failed to detach and she lost a liter of blood. The investigation surfaces a new gap: unlike Texas, Arkansas has issued no guidance telling doctors they can legally induce miscarriages without waiting for sepsis to set in.

THE BABY GETS SEVEN CHECKUPS. THE MOTHER GETS ONE.

In an essay in the New York Times, Sejal Hathi, director of the Oregon Health Authority and a Stanford physician, describes assembling her own postpartum care after a third-degree tear and separated abdominal muscles that made lifting her infant difficult. Her specialist OB discharged her at six weeks, her clinic had too booked for new postpartum patients, and her primary care physician said recovery was outside her scope. As Hathi put it: “Beyond the first few weeks after delivery, no single clinician owns accountability for the mother’s recovery and well-being. Her baby will see a pediatrician seven or more times in the first year of life. Whether the mother sees a doctor will depend largely on whether something goes wrong.”

TRUMP PROMISED TO COVER IVF. DON'T WAIT FOR IT.

Last week, the Trump administration proposed a rule letting employers voluntarily offer standalone IVF benefits with a $120,000 lifetime cap — no mandate, no financial incentive for employers to sign on. Experts are unconvinced: "Do not delay your treatment thinking there's going to be a benefit from this policy anytime soon," said Sean Tipton of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. A single IVF cycle runs $25,000 to $35,000; only 30 percent of employers currently cover it; Trump's 2024 campaign had promised the government would pay.

THE PERIMENOPAUSE CONTENT BOOM HAS A SIDE EFFECT: UNINTENDED PREGNANCIES.

Experts interviewed by the Guardian warn that perimenopause content on social media is sending some women in their 30s and 40s to demand HRT for insomnia while stopping contraception, a combination producing unintended pregnancies. "I work in an abortion service and we're seeing more women over 35 now who believe themselves to be menopausal and are gobsmacked when they become pregnant," said Dr. Paula Briggs, a sexual and reproductive health consultant. The British Menopause Society's chair is direct: if you're still having regular periods, you're not perimenopausal, and contraception is needed until menopause is confirmed or age 55.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE FEMALE BRAIN WHEN ESTROGEN DISAPPEARS

A Northwestern Medicine preclinical study is the first to show that estrogen loss after menopause alters the extracellular matrix (molecular scaffold between certain brain cells) in women but not in men. The ECM makes up about 20 percent of brain volume and helps cells communicate; its breakdown in aging females may help explain why two-thirds of Alzheimer's patients are women. "Once memory is gone, it's gone," said Serdar Bulun, the study's senior author and chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern Feinberg.

Tonight: a weight loss drug just posted numbers associated with bariatric surgery, what 198 proteins in your blood have to do with your period, and more.

— Meghan McCarthy

WOMEN'S HEALTH GETS 20 CENTS ON THE RESEARCH DOLLAR

Only 20% of program funding across the ten conditions analyzed by the World Economic Forum targets women specifically, and 59% of that goes to just two: ovarian cancer and menopause. For conditions that hit women harder or differently, including heart disease and anxiety, fewer than 3% of clinical trials carry any women-specific focus. Anxiety disorders illustrate the translation gap: 112 pipeline programs identified, four products launched in the past decade.

THE NEXT WEIGHT LOSS DRUG JUST HIT NUMBERS ASSOCIATED WITH BARIATRIC SURGERY

Eli Lilly's retatrutide — a GLP-1 that also hits two additional receptors — posted results showing over 45% of participants reached at least 30% weight loss, a threshold long associated with bariatric surgery. Participants who took the drug for two years lost an average of 85 pounds. Women already use GLP-1 drugs at roughly twice the rate of men which makes the results particularly consequential for women's health.

THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE LEAVES A PROTEIN FINGERPRINT IN YOUR BLOOD

A Nature Medicine study analyzed blood plasma from around 2,800 women and identified 198 proteins that rise and fall in distinct patterns across the menstrual cycle — extending well beyond reproductive hormones into immune, vascular, and metabolic pathways. Several of those proteins overlap with endometriosis, fibroids, and abnormal uterine bleeding. Researchers also developed a 75-protein score capable of predicting menstrual cycle phase from a single blood draw, with potential implications for how clinical trials account for cycle timing and how these common, chronically underdiagnosed disorders get identified earlier.

CREATINE IS THE MENOPAUSE SUPPLEMENT OF THE MOMENT. DOCTORS ARE LESS SURE.

Creatine has become the supplement of the moment for women in perimenopause and menopause, with influencers claiming it fights muscle loss and brain fog. The New York Times found that most creatine research has been done in men and a 2025 meta-analysis couldn't draw conclusions on its effects in middle age due to insufficient data. The Cleveland Clinic's medical director for women's comprehensive health described the evidence in women as "quite weak." Most physicians interviewed won't recommend it but won't fight a patient who wants to try: it's safe, inexpensive, and — per the experts — has to be paired with resistance training to do anything for muscle mass at all.

BIRTH CONTROL IS OTC NOW. YOUNG WOMEN STILL DON'T KNOW HOW IT WORKS.

Since 2024, birth control pills are available over the counter in the U.S. — no prescription needed. A University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy survey of women aged 16 to 24 found they have only moderate knowledge about how pills prevent pregnancy and what the side effects are, with rural women faring worse due to pharmacy closures and fewer OBGYNs. The study's author flags AI chatbots and platforms like ChatGPT as an unreliable substitute for a provider conversation — at a moment when that's exactly where many young women are going for answers.

Tonight: abortion bans are changing miscarriage care, how biology might play a role in PMDD and psychiatric conditions, and more.

— Meghan McCarthy

WHAT ABORTION BANS ARE DOING TO MISCARRIAGE CARE

States with abortion bans at or before six weeks have also changed how miscarriages get treated, a JAMA study of tens of thousands of privately insured patients found. Women in ban states were less likely to receive the gold standard mifepristone-misoprostol regimen and 14 points more likely to be given misoprostol alone, a less effective option with greater side effects. The study, the first national look at this connection, excludes Medicaid patients, which means the actual scope is likely larger. The broader point: abortion bans are no longer just shaping abortion access; they’re reshaping routine pregnancy care for women who very much wanted to stay pregnant.

YOUR PMDD AND YOUR ANXIETY ARE DRIVING EACH OTHER

Women with premenstrual disorders face roughly double the lifetime risk of developing depression, anxiety, ADHD, or bipolar disorder, and the relationship runs both ways: prior psychiatric diagnoses roughly double the risk of later developing PMDD or PMS, a JAMA Network Open analysis of 3.6 million Swedish women found. Researchers tracked records from 2001 to 2022. The two-way pattern suggests the conditions share underlying biology rather than merely co-occurring by chance. The bigger implication is that PMDD still gets treated culturally as “bad PMS” when the data increasingly points to it being deeply intertwined with serious psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions.

THE MENOPAUSE SLEEP SYMPTOM THAT MISSES SCREENING

A nationally representative survey of 1,200 U.S. women, presented at the ACOG annual meeting, found that 75 percent of those with menopausal symptoms reported sleep problems, compared with about half of women without symptoms. Sleep disorders rarely come up at menopause appointments, even though untreated sleep disruption compounds other menopausal health risks, including cardiovascular disease and depression.

FOR THE HIGHEST-RISK C-SECTIONS, A DRUG THAT CUTS HEMORRHAGE RATES

A multicenter Chinese randomized trial of around 1,700 women with placenta previa found that giving tranexamic acid at the time of cesarean delivery cut postpartum hemorrhage rates from 35 to 30 percent, a statistically significant though modest reduction, per the BMJ study. Placenta previa, in which the placenta partially or fully covers the cervix, puts women at elevated hemorrhage risk; postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide.

THE FDA DOOR NOW WIDE OPEN FOR ABORTION OPPONENTS

Anti-abortion groups spent months calling for FDA Commissioner Marty Makary's firing over his slow-walking a mifepristone “safety” review, and his exit this week gives them a new shot at a successor willing to restrict the drug's telehealth approval. His departure is also a loss for menopause advocates. Makary championed expanded hormone therapy access, and the FDA removed black box warnings from estrogen treatments during his tenure.

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

🩺 The Supreme Court let the abortion pill stay on telehealth — for now (again). The court ruled Thursday that mifepristone can continue being prescribed via telehealth while a Louisiana challenge moves through lower courts. Two conservative justices dissented, calling the result a "perpetration of a scheme" against the court's decision to allow states to ban abortion.

💊 Postpartum depression peaks around two weeks after birth. A Lancet Psychiatry meta-analysis of around 2 million women across 90 countries found the highest prevalence of major depressive disorder comes earlier than most standard screening starts.

🔬 PCOS is officially being renamed PMOS. A global group of 56 organizations and The Lancet agreed to rename polycystic ovary syndrome to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, finally reflecting the metabolic and hormonal disease it actually is. The "cysts" were never cysts. They're arrested follicles.

TOP CLICKED STORIES THIS WEEK

Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America Launches National Campaign to Cut U.S. Maternal Mortality in Half Within Five Years — Heartland Forward

New Gov't Website Will Help CPCs Collect Data On Pregnant Women — Abortion, Every Day

The Men Who Want Women to Be Quiet — The Atlantic

Cardiovascular Health Characterization Using Life's Essential 8 Score in Perimenopausal Women: An Analysis of the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey — Journal of the American Heart Association

How to Improve Your Bone Health — Vogue

The global prevalence of major depressive disorder during the peripartum period: a systematic review and meta-regression — The Lancet Psychiatry

Risk of congenital anomalies among infants of patients with endometriosis: a population-based cohort study — CMAJ

Tonight: PCOS gets a new official name, the lates on the Supreme Court, and more.

— Meghan McCarthy

SCOTUS SAYS ABORTION PILL TELEHEALTH PRESCRIBING CAN CONTINUE…FOR NOW (AGAIN)

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the abortion pill, known as mifepristone, could continue being prescribed via telehealth appointments while a case brought by Louisiana moves through lower courts. Two conservative justices dissented in the decision, saying it was a “perpetration of a scheme” against the Supreme Court’s decision to allow states to outright ban abortion. (How do they feel about states like Missouri, whose residents voted for abortion access, yet they still don’t fully have it? One will never know…)

PCOS WAS NEVER THE RIGHT NAME

A global group of 56 organizations using more than 22,000 patient survey responses reached a consensus and The Lancet made it official: polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS will now be called polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS. The change reflects what doctors have long known: the “cysts” seen on ultrasound aren’t actually cysts. They’re arrested follicles, and the old name obscured the metabolic and hormonal problems at the heart of the condition. The new name keeps “ovarian” but adds “polyendocrine” for the multiple hormonal disturbances and “metabolic” for the insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular risks that come with it. Lead author Helena Teede framed the rename as a chance to finally treat PMOS as the multisystem condition it actually is, not a fertility problem.

THE MEN WHO WANT WOMEN QUIET

The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis argues that “masculinism” has become the single most important force holding together the American right, profiling Doug Wilson, Nick Fuentes, Scott Yenor of Heritage, and others openly working to remove women’s right to vote, work, and divorce. Wilson, the pastor Pete Hegseth invited to lead the Pentagon worship service, told Lewis he favors household-only voting and the eventual repeal of the 19th Amendment (“maybe 200 years’ time”). The piece walks through how the “longhouse thesis,” anti-empathy rhetoric, and Heritage’s “family wage” policy proposals all fit together.

THE HEART HEALTH WARNING NOBODY (IN THEIR 40s) KNOWS

Perimenopausal women are twice as likely to have a low cardiovascular health score compared to women with regular cycles, according to a Journal of the American Heart Association analysis of nationwide U.S. data published Wednesday. The gap was driven by higher cholesterol and blood sugar levels, and the authors argue clinicians should start screening for blood pressure, cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes earlier in the perimenopausal transition. In other words, the window for prevention is open right when most women aren’t being told to look.

ENDOMETRIOSIS DOESN’T END AT FERTILITY

A population study of roughly 1.5 million Ontario births found that infants born to women with endometriosis had a 16% higher rate of congenital anomalies, including cleft palate, hypospadias, and pulmonary artery stenosis. IVF and ICSI accounted for only 11% of the excess risk, suggesting endometriosis itself drives the pattern, not the fertility treatments.

Tonight: a Supreme Court ruling on telemedicine abortion access is (once again) days away, a Mother’s Day website that’s actually a government data pipeline, and more.

— Meghan McCarthy

THE MIFEPRISTONE RULING IS DAYS AWAY

Justice Alito on Monday extended his stay to continue telemedicine access to mifepristone, pushing the deadline three more days while the full court deliberates. Around one in four US abortions now happen via telemedicine. The Trump administration’s FDA declined the court’s request for a brief; former FDA leaders filed one anyway, arguing the appeals court decision “would upend FDA’s gold-standard, science-based drug approval system.”

GOVERNORS CROSS AISLE ON MATERNAL MORTALITY

Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) launched “Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America”, an effort founded by Olivia Walton that has a five-year goal of cutting U.S. maternal mortality in half. They say they are targeting state-led policy reform by gathering employers, health systems, and policymakers around a single measurable target. Maternal deaths cost the U.S. economy an estimated $165 billion a year; more than 80% are preventable.

MOMS.GOV IS A DATA PIPELINE

The Trump administration launched moms.gov on Mother’s Day, along with a goal of eventually letting employers offer stand-alone IVF and fertility insurance plans. But the government site funnels users to an antiabortion organization’s “Option Line”, a data-collection tool that has gathered names, addresses, marital status, and menstruation dates from millions of women under terms allowing the data to be used “for any and all purposes.” Republican Sen. Katie Britt, who twice introduced bills to build a federal “crisis” pregnancy center site under different names, stood behind Trump at the launch.

OSTEOPENIA IS HAVING A MOMENT

Vogue reports that bone-density loss is sliding from AARP territory to wellness-influencer world, partly driven by GLP-1s (rapid weight loss can accelerate bone loss). Reporter Alice Gregory became osteopenic at age 37 and learned that a USPSTF still doesn’t recommend a baseline DEXA scan until 65—a cutoff her endocrinologist calls “terrible.” Twenty-one percent of older women who fracture a hip die within a year.

POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION PEAKS BEFORE WE SCREEN FOR IT

A Lancet Psychiatry meta-analysis of 780 studies covering around 2 million women across 90 countries found the most women (around 8%) with major depressive disorder peaks around two weeks after childbirth. They also noted that standard symptom scales overestimate prevalence by up to 122% versus diagnostic interview, but the timing finding still holds. Prevalence stays elevated through the rest of the first postpartum year.

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

📊 Half of American women fear medical bills more than cancer. A Cleveland Clinic survey found nearly 50% are more worried about affording care than developing cancer, heart disease, or Alzheimer's.

💊 The Supreme Court's reprieve on a mifepristone telehealth ban lifts Monday. Justice Alito's temporary order keeping the pill available by mail expires May 11, just as once-loyal anti-abortion leaders publicly turn on Trump for letting it keep flowing.

🩺 A small upside to PCOS, finally. Women with the condition reach menopause later and report 32% fewer symptoms, including 41% fewer hot flashes, than women without it.

TOP CLICKED STORIES THIS WEEK

Using over-the-counter drugs to treat menopause symptoms? Think again, doctor advises — CNN

As the estrogen patch shortage continues, these women are meeting with the FDA — USA Today

AI can detect breast cancer risk before humans. Why it may take hospitals a while to adopt the tech — WBUR

ACOG 2026: New Study Shows Preventive Care Use Low After Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy — Patient Care Online

Study: New preeclampsia treatment may safely extend pregnancy — EurekAlert / Cedars-Sinai

Maria Shriver highlights new survey on women's health, financial strain — WTHR

PCOS Linked to Later Menopause and Fewer Symptoms — Medscape

Tonight: women fear a healthcare bill more than a potentially deadly diagnosis, the estrogen patch shortage just landed at the FDA's doorstep, and more.

— Meghan McCarthy

WOMEN ARE MORE AFRAID OF THE BILL THAN THE DIAGNOSIS

A Cleveland Clinic survey found nearly half of US women are more worried about affording healthcare than they are about getting cancer, heart disease, or Alzheimer's. Maria Shriver presented the findings Thursday at the Cleveland Clinic Global Women's Health + WAM Forum. (If you click on the link, scroll down to see this specific story.)

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ONE IN TEN WOMEN JUST QUIT HRT BECAUSE OF A SHORTAGE

Almost half of women on hormone replacement therapy say they can't reliably fill their estrogen patch prescriptions, and one in ten have stopped treatment entirely, per an 8,000-woman Midi Health (informal) survey across 49 states. Patches have been short since January. Midi's CMO and a group of patients met with the FDA on Wednesday to push for action and pointed at the manufacturers, not demand, as the cause: Bayer stopped producing patches in 2023, and Sandoz says the patches are unusually complex to make.

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MEET THE COURT THAT KEEPS GETTING REVERSED

The appeals court that gutted telehealth access to mifepristone last week is the most-reversed appeals court in the country, with the Supreme Court overturning 10 of 13 of its decisions last term. Trump appointee Judge Kyle Duncan wrote the opinion, arguing Louisiana has standing to sue because it once paid Medicaid for two abortion-pill complications. Legal observers note that's an even thinner claim than the doctors' standing argument SCOTUS unanimously rejected in 2024.

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MAMMOGRAM AI WORKS. INSURANCE DOESN'T COVER IT.

AI tools that read mammograms can flag breast cancer risk years before doctors notice it. A UMass Memorial pilot using MIT's Mirai algorithm caught six already-existing cancers in 145 high-risk women on its own. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network added AI risk assessment to its 2026 screening guidelines, but most insurance plans don't cover the follow-up MRIs (around $1,400) or out-of-pocket scans (around $200), leaving the technology mostly in well-resourced hospitals.

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PCOS HAS ONE LATE BENEFIT

In a Finnish birth-cohort study of women at age 46, just 3.1% of those with polycystic ovary syndrome had reached late perimenopause or menopause, compared with 18.4% of women without PCOS. The PCOS group also reported fewer hot flashes and less disrupted sleep. Researchers think prolonged exposure to natural estrogens may explain the gap and may carry some long-term health benefits for a condition more often discussed in terms of its costs.

Tonight: a one-week reprieve from an abortion pill ban, the missing check-up for postpartum women, and more.

— Meghan McCarthy

SCOTUS GIVES US WOMEN ONE MORE WEEK TO ACCESS ABORTION PILL

The Supreme Court restored mail access to mifepristone Monday, blocking a 5th Circuit ruling from last week that would have ended telehealth-prescribed delivery. The reprieve isn’t long—it only runs through May 11 with briefs due Thursday. Mifepristone is used in roughly 60% of US abortions.

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THEY GOT WHAT THEY WANTED. THEY'RE FURIOUS ANYWAY.

Meanwhile, the antiabortion movement is publicly turning on Trump, frustrated that abortion pills remain widely available a year into his second term, despite a Republican White House and a reshaped Supreme Court. Activists, donors, and lawyers say the administration hasn't followed through on promises to restrict mifepristone or enforce an 1873 law that bans the post office from sending “obscene” items.

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TWO IN THREE NEW MOTHERS WITH HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GET NO FOLLOW-UP

Just 35% of women who develop high blood pressure during pregnancy get a preventive doctor's visit in the year after giving birth, according to a Massachusetts All-Payer Claims analysis presented at the ACOG annual meeting. High blood pressure during pregnancy is one of the strongest predictors of women's later cardiovascular disease, and the postpartum year is one of the few moments their care team is actively watching.

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A FILTER, NOT A DRUG, FOR PREECLAMPSIA

In a small study, a Cedars-Sinai team used a dialysis-like blood filter to remove a placental protein that can drive severe early preeclampsia, and extended patients' pregnancies by about 10 days in a 16-woman international trial. Right now, the main treatment for severe early preeclampsia is delivering the baby, which can force extremely premature infants into the NICU. The Nature Medicine paper offers the first targeted treatment for one of the leading causes of maternal and fetal death.

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TIKTOK: ONCE AGAIN OFFERING BAD MENOPAUSE ADVICE

Women on social media are stacking over-the-counter antihistamines like Allegra with Pepcid to treat hot flashes and brain fog. CNN's Dr. Leana Wen points out that menopausal symptoms are mostly driven by estrogen-related changes in the brain's temperature regulation, not histamine, and no clinical trials support the hack. FDA-approved nonhormonal hot-flash drugs already exist.

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

🔬 A DECADE AFTER NIH REQUIRED SEX DATA, MOST STUDIES STILL AREN'T REPORTING IT — A review of nearly 600 NIH-funded studies found only 44% reported results broken down by sex, despite a 2016 policy requiring it. Sixty-one percent included women — but most didn't analyze the differences. We still don't know if most drugs work differently in women.

🚨STUDY: ABORTION BANS LINKED TO MORE PREGNANT WOMEN DYING — Researchers analyzing national vital statistics found a potential 9% increase in pregnancy-associated deaths in the 14 states that imposed abortion bans — roughly 68 more deaths by end of 2023 than predicted. Researchers noted data limitations but pointed out that births carry more risk than abortion.

🧬 YOUR ORGANS DON'T AGE TOGETHER — A large-scale atlas of female reproductive aging found that around menopause, the ovary and vagina shift gradually over years while the uterus changes abruptly at the transition itself. The Barcelona Supercomputing Center study, published in Nature Aging, tracked roughly 21,000 women and identified blood-based biomarkers that could let doctors monitor reproductive aging without invasive testing. One body, multiple clocks.

TOP CLICKED THIS WEEK

• NIH-funded research lags in reporting sex differences, new study finds // STAT News

• Your organs aren't aging in sync // Nature Aging

• Study Suggests Increase in Deaths During or Within One Year of Pregnancy in States that Imposed Abortion Bans // Johns Hopkins Public Health

• New Orleans program does free house calls for new mothers. It's saving many from going over a postpartum 'cliff' // The Guardian

• Infant formula largely safe from heavy metals, FDA finds // STAT News

• Anorexic reconciliation bill could mean Planned Parenthood gets re-funded // Politico