What we’ve found in women’s health this week: A state quietly decided you shouldn’t pay to finish a cancer screening. Menopause demand just outpaced supply. Doctors are being told to believe women sooner. Bone health has become a competitive sport. And GLP-1s? The gender gap just got data.

STOPPING CERVICAL CANCER FOR FREE // Axios reports Oregon lawmakers unanimously passed a bill banning deductibles and copays not just for Pap tests, but for follow-up care after an abnormal result. If signed by Gov. Tina Kotek, Oregon would be the first state to eliminate out-of-pocket costs across the full cervical cancer screening process, so patients aren’t billed for actually finishing it.

WHERE’S MY PATCH? // The New York Times digs deeper on estrogen patches shortages nationwide, hitting 10 different estradiol formulations. Why? Prescriptions jumped 86% from 2021 to 2025 and manufacturers failed to keep up. Menopause may finally have more avenues for care, but it might be a while until patients can reliably get the basics.

TRUST THE PAIN // The nation’s biggest OBGYN group is telling doctors to stop waiting for surgery to diagnose endometriosis and to trust symptoms and imaging instead. The shift could spare patients years of dismissal, delay, and unnecessary pain.

BONES, BUT MAKE IT EXTREME // Emma Rosenblum takes on (and makes so fum of) the bone-density craze, from protein-loading to weighted-vest flexing: “I ask Dr. Tang if I have to dead lift my own weight, hop around the block or get a DEXA scan, and she laughs and says no. ‘If you’re not at high risk, you don’t have to do any of that,’ she says. ‘For the average person, it’s just lifestyle modifications. Some weight-bearing exercises, some strength training.’”

LADIES LOSE MORE // A review of nearly 20,000 people, women on GLP-1 drugs lost more weight than men, and that likely because of biology. Results were otherwise similar across age and race groups, suggesting sex may be one of the only meaningful differentiators in these high-cost meds.

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

🧠 America may be stretching postpartum depression, not shortening it. A cross-country study found US moms’ symptoms barely improve over five years, while peer nations see recovery. That points to policy as a cause, not biology. In other words, support systems could be shaping mental health outcomes.

❤️ We’re entering the 6-in-10 heart era. By 2050, most women are projected to have cardiovascular disease, and it’s hitting younger women earlier. Researchers say prevention is the only way this curve bends.

🤖 AI is starting to govern women’s health. Algorithms are identifying breast-cancer risk from mammograms while Facebook chatbots restrict abortion information. These systems will shape both who gets flagged and what people are allowed to know. How these systems are built will influence real-world care.

TOP CLICKED STORIES THIS WEEK

The Plot Against American Women // Throughline

Breast Cancer Screening and Risk Reduction // The Washington Post

Heart-Disease Risk Forecasts for Women by 2050 // STAT

Activity Restriction in Pregnancy and the Risk of Early Delivery // Obstetrics & Gynecology

Wisconsin Extends Postpartum Medicaid for New Mothers // ProPublica

U.S. Mothers Aren’t Recovering from Postpartum Depression // WebMD

In tonight’s edition: a newborn infection we still can’t prevent, a heart-disease wave building in plain sight, US depression that won’t lift, a country betting big on HPV shots—and an AI deciding what teens can ask about abortion.

THE NEWBORN GAP WE HAVEN’T FIXED // The New England Journal of Medicine reviews the state of Group B strep, a leading killer of newborns, and how antibiotics during labor don’t solve the whole problem. They say that vaccines in development could finally protect babies beyond birth. If they work, this would be one of the most meaningful maternal-infant prevention shifts in decades.

SIX IN TEN // By 2050, 6 in 10 women are projected to have cardiovascular disease—and it’s hitting younger women earlier. The American Heart Association says the drivers are structural: obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and a prevention system that waits too long. As one cardiologist put it: “We’re taking care of heart attacks quite well, but we’re really not preventing any. And so we’re seeing more disease in younger people, which I think is a terrible trend. We can’t treat our way out of this; we have to prevent our way out of this.”

STUCK FOR FIVE YEARS // A study looking at 31,500 moms’ mental health data from the US, UK, and Australia found that women in the US see their postpartum depression symptoms barely budge over five years, unlike the U.K. and Australia. The explanation they offer is that this isn’t biological—it’s policy. Thin parental leave and childcare support may be extending suffering far beyond the newborn stage.

A COUNTRY-WIDE CANCER PREVENTION PLAN // As the US Senate grills a surgeon general candidate who dodged vaccine questions, India just cleared a free, nationwide HPV vaccine program for 14-year-old girls. This move could dramatically cut cervical cancer deaths.

WHO GETS TO ASK ABOUT ABORTION? // Mother Jones got leaked documents from Meta showing their AI chatbot restricts abortion and sexual-health info for teens. The guidance explicitly banned providing information “‘that helps a user obtain or carry out an abortion (such as ‘You can go to Planned Parenthood to get an abortion’), or providing users with locational information that could be used to obtain abortions. It also prohibits the chatbot from providing a ‘value judgement’ for or against abortion.”

Tonight: more death-penalty bills, a postpartum breakthrough, and an AI that sees what we can’t.

Plus infections, preterm risk, and why “access” still isn’t access.

DEATH PENALTY FOR ABORTIONS (AGAIN) // Two Tennessee Republican legislators are pushing a bill to label abortion “homicide of an unborn child,” which would open the door to the death penalty for people who get abortions—and anyone who helps them. We’ve seen this in other states and it’s failed each time. Attention helps.

WISCONSIN POSTPARTUM, FINALLY // ProPublica reports that the Wisconsin Assembly voted 95–1 to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to a full year. This happened after Speaker Robin Vos finally let the bipartisan bill move forward; and Gov. Tony Evers is expected to sign. Wisconsin will be one of the last states to extend this care, which gives low-income moms coverage during the stretch when serious postpartum complications often surface.

BLACK BOX BREASTS // The Boston Globe reports that Boston startup Clairity built an AI tool that flags high breast-cancer risk from a standard mammogram, and it is outperforming family-history questionnaires to identify women at high risk. That could help target prevention meds and earlier screening. But exactly how it identifies risk is still unknown (i.e. what patterns is it seeing that the human eye can’t?), which can make clinicians wary.

UTIs → PRETERM? // A large study over nearly 700,000 pregnant women found UTIs during pregnancy were linked to a significantly higher risk of preterm birth. The risk was highest in the first six days after diagnosis and when the infection occurred before 28 weeks. It’s a signal to take pregnancy UTIs seriously, even though observational data can’t prove causation.

ACCESS ≠ AVAILABLE // KFF has all the details on IUDs in the US, and they explain how access depends on cost, insurance fine print, and whether a clinic offers same-day insertion (and real pain control). They also note that a new copper IUD, Miudella, is approved and expected in 2026…but uninsured patients are far more likely to stop (or never start) long-acting birth control because of cost.

Hear are the trends we spotted this week in women’s health, and as always, scroll for the top clicked stories.

• 🩺 Early prenatal care is slipping. First-trimester visits dropped three points from 2021–2024, possibly because maternity deserts are expanding. Access (not awareness) may be the real crisis.
  

• 🚨 An autopsy on a 13-week miscarriage in SC. No trauma was found, but officials were trying to DNA-identify the mother. In a post-Dobbs environment, even a natural miscarriage can trigger law enforcement involvement.
  

• 🚶‍♀️ Bed rest may not prevent preterm birth — and could make it worse. In a small randomized study, women who took fewer than 3,500 steps per day delivered earlier. Another long-standing pregnancy norm facing new scrutiny.

TOP CLICKED STORIES THIS WEEK

Trends in Comparative Growth in Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Programs Over the Past 20 Years (2005–2024) // Obstetrics & Gynecology

The Plot Against American Women // Throughline

Activity Restriction in Pregnancy and the Risk of Early Delivery // Obstetrics & Gynecology

Birth Control Is Changing — and So Are Women’s Attitudes Toward It // Vox

Coroner Releases Autopsy Details on Fetus Found at Water Plant // WACH

Menopausal hormone therapy not linked to increased risk of death // British Medical Journal

The case for more personalized breast cancer screening // Washington Post

Tonight in women’s health: the (good) HRT data keeps stacking up, risk-based mammograms spark pushback, early prenatal care declines, bed rest faces new scrutiny, and the wellness industry meets infertility desperation.

HORMONE THERAPY NOT DEADLY // Another large study adds to the now-consistent evidence: an analysis of more than 800,000 women found women who used it were no more likely to die from heart disease or cancer than those who didn’t. Hormone therapy remains nuanced, but the accumulating data are steadily challenging the idea that it broadly shortens women’s lives.

FERTILITY RETREAT ENEMAS // After four years of trying to conceive (and many rounds of IVF), Annie Daly went to a “fertility enhancement” retreat in the Himalayas, where she got Ayurvedic oil baths, enemas, yoga, the works. She left with lower blood cortisol levels and a sense of peace; whether it helps her get pregnant is TBD. It’s a well-done take on what we will do when conventional medicine offers limited answers.

MORE SKIPPING EARLY PRENATAL CARE // Prenatal care rose from 2016 to 2021, but a CDC study found that number dropped from 2021 to 2024. Researchers found a three-percentage-point drop in early checkups and a two-point rise in women getting late or no care at all. With over a third of U.S. counties now considered “maternity care deserts,” access may be the more urgent variable.

BED REST BAD FOR PRETERM PREVENTION? // A small study in Obstetrics & Gynecology found that bed rest or limiting activity for pregnant women didn’t help prevent preterm birth…it might have made things worse. Of the randomized group of women (who joined between 16 and nearly 24 weeks pregnant), those who took fewer than 3,500 steps per day ended up delivering earlier. It’s a reminder that some standard pregnancy advice was adopted before strong evidence existed.

PERSONALIZE, DON’T SKIP // After suggesting breast cancer screening should be more personalized, Leana Wen heard from readers who worried she was telling women not to get mammograms at 40. She says that’s not the message: the argument is for risk-based screening, not skipping care. If you’re high risk, annual screening may not be enough; if you’re low risk, you may be over-screened. The shift is about matching screening intensity to actual risk.

Tonight in women’s health (and personal freedoms): reproductive sewer surveillance, the Project 2275 playbook, more depth on the birth control backlash, maternal mortality in conflict zones, and the slow-growing OBGYN workforce.

AUTOPSY FOR 13 WEEK MISCARRIAGE IN SC? // A bizarre and frightening story from South Carolina, where an employee at a county sewer facility found a 13–15-week-old fetus and alerted law enforcement. The fetus was clearly the product of a miscarriage (which often happens in a toilet), but the county still performed an autopsy. They found no evidence of trauma, but they are still looking to establish a DNA profile to find the mother (??!!)

BIG BROTHER WANTS WOMEN OUT OF COLLEGE // Jill Filipovic reports that the authors of “Project 2025” have a new playbook for America’s next 250 years, and it lays out a shockingly (but not shockingly?) explicit plan to roll back women’s rights. That includes banning IVF, restricting contraception, and having fewer women go to college so they can marry early and have children. If you think this is an exaggeration, Filipovic goes point-by-point through the document, using its own text.

THE WHOLE BIRTH CONTROL BACKLASH BUSINESS // Hannah Seo has a deep dive on Vox exploring how frustrations with hormonal contraception are in part fueling a backlash—and that includes how real medical gaps are driving some people to junk science. As she puts it: “…it’s worth interrogating where people’s dissatisfactions come from, and tracing how legitimate experiences with and worries about hormonal contraceptives can lead people toward alternate (and often scientifically dubious) sources of education about their bodies.”

WAR IS DEADLY FOR MOMS // A World Health Organization report found nearly two-thirds of all women who die in childbirth live in countries wracked by conflict or instability. In other words, unstable political environments make pregnancy far deadlier than it should be. They also find some potential solutions: “In Colombia, training traditional birth attendants shows how strengthening trusted local networks can ensure timely care even where access is limited due to geography, insecurity or mistrust.”

OBGYNS MISSING AFTER MED SCHOOL // Researchers found OBGYN residency programs grew more slowly than most other specialties over the past 20 years, even after a 2015 change was supposed to help disparities among medical specialties. Since 2016, the specialty has lagged behind family medicine, emergency medicine, internal medicine, and psychiatry. They say it is leading to a “persistent gap in capacity to meet increasing demand.”

Tonight in women’s health we’ve got the top causes of pregnant and postpartum mortality (it’s not what you might think), a new IVF device that could be a game changer, and a take that even the French are getting in on wellness culture—subbing butter for olive oil.

DRUGS, VIOLENCE, AND PREGNANCY // What is the most likely cause of death for pregnant and postpartum women? Columbia University reports in the New England Journal of Medicine that it is drug overdoses, homicide, or suicide—not medical complications. The lead researcher of the study warned that medicine “may not do as good a job in screening for drug use and intimate partner violence among our pregnant patients as we do for medical complications…we have an opportunity to refocus our efforts on preventing drug overdose and violence with multidisciplinary care that includes referrals to mental health care and social services throughout pregnancy—which could save hundreds of lives.” 

EGGS MIGHT ABOUND // The New York Times reports on a new device that found viable eggs missed by standard IVF searches in more than half of patients. Of the 582 patients studied, the device found extra viable eggs in 316 patients in fluids that would have otherwise been discarded. Those numbers could be a game-changer if it holds up in bigger tests.

RURAL AREAS LOSE NICUS // A JAMA study finds the number of urban hospitals with advanced newborn care units increased while those in rural hospitals dropped from 2010 to 2022, leaving much of rural America without access to critical care for fragile infants. Over that time period, rural areas lost 22 hospitals providing more advanced care while urban areas gained 31.

STUDY: ANTIDEPRESSANTS WORK // Preliminary research presented at the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine found pregnant women who quit their antidepressants were nearly twice as likely to need emergency mental health care as those who stayed on them. They study examined 1,400 women in Pennsylvania using private insurance and pharmacy claims, and all of the women had been diagnosed with anxiety or depression and was taking an antidepressant before getting pregnant.

FRENCH WOMEN (DO GET WELLNESS CUTLURE) // Vanity Fair reports that even Paris, long the capital of carefree indulgence, has gone in on wellness culture, trading butter for olive oil and Botox for “Better Than Botox” juice. As Hannah Seligson writes: “It’s strange to see the French shy away from dairy and embrace new-age practices like meditation—wellness routines that seem quintessentially American—after decades of messaging about how the French do pretty much everything better than we do.”

The top stories in women’s health so far this week cover how a shingles shot is linked to lower dementia risk, rethinking when breast cancer screening should begin, and long-overdue data confirming thousands of women experience significant pain during C-sections every year.

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A SHOT TO PREVENT DEMENTIA? // A study released early from Nature found people over age 65 who got the shingles vaccine were 51% less likely to develop dementia, and the “risk reduction was stronger in females compared to males.” A drop in dementia risk is especially meaningful for women, who make up two thirds of Alzheimer’s patients.

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL FOR BREAST CANCER SCREENINGS // The Washington Post’s Leana Wen breaks down the latest findings on breast cancer screenings, and how experts are rethinking mammograms as the first step in the process. She explains how a recent study found genetic testing at 30 might catch more real risks and fewer false alarms.

C-SECTION ANESTHESIA FAILURES // The New York Times “Daily” podcast revisits a series from last year on how anesthesia is failing some women during C-section surgery, causing extreme pain. The issue is finally getting studied, and a major study last month found about 8% of women endure significant pain during a C-section. And with 1.2 million C-sections in the US every year, that means “100,000 women a year experience significant pain.”

MARY CLAIRE HAVER JOINS MIDI // Midi Health has hired the original Instagram menopause expert, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, as its first “Chief AgeWell Officer.” CEO Joanna Strober said in a press release that “by collaborating with Dr. Haver, we are ensuring women continue to have access to care designed for their bodies, their hormones, and their real lives.”

MIDWIFES FOR MENOPAUSE // Ms. Magazine has an essay from a fourth-generation midwife reviving an old truth: midwifery isn’t just for birth, it has also covered menopause (and still can). Racha Tahani Lawler describes her practice of offering individualized care that keeps bodily autonomy in the hands of patients.

Hear are the trends we spotted this week in women’s health, and as always, scroll for the top clicked stories.

• ⚠️ Abortion bans linked to rising postpartum depression. Comparing outcomes before and after the Supreme Court overturned Roe, researchers found a 9% increase in postpartum depression among low-income women in states that banned abortion. The data adds to growing evidence that abortion bans affect women’s health well beyond pregnancy itself.
  

• 💊 Menopause demand is outpacing supply. Increased use of hormone therapy, helped along by recent FDA label changes, has contributed to nationwide shortages of estrogen patches. It’s a reminder that demand can move faster than manufacturing and access, even as menopause care draws more investment.
  

• 🩺 Cervical cancer screening may be able to scale back. A study found that women vaccinated against HPV might need fewer Pap smears over a lifetime. This comes soon after the FDA approved self-swab tests for cervical cancer, showing how prevention strategies could quickly evolve.

TOP CLICKED STORIES THIS WEEK

Menopause myths, debunked // National Geographic

Postpartum depression rose after abortion bans, study finds // JAMA Network Open

NIH funding cuts disrupt breast cancer research pipeline // American College of Physicians

Estrogen patch shortage leaves patients scrambling // ABC7

Pregnant and undocumented, avoiding care out of fear // The New York Times

Midi Health hits unicorn status with $100M raise // Fierce Healthcare