Hear are the top things to know in women’s health and wellness so far this week:
USA Today has a good overview of the lack of menopause care in America. It won’t surprise any regular readers of this newsletter, but it’s still helpful to have it gathered in one spot.
I saw very little coverage of this over the past week, but we cannot forget the women who are dying due to lack of pregnancy care in abortion ban states. ProPublica found a recent case of a mom in Texas with high blood pressure who was too sick to be pregnant at all.
From the Department of You’re Kidding — the federal government has female crash test dummies for the first time in the driver’s seat, even though women are much more likely to be injured or die in a crash than men.
JUMP TO…
EVERYTHING
What: Women in the United States are 73% more likely than men to be severely injured in vehicle crashes and 17% more likely to die, reports the New York Times. Yet it took until last week for the Transportation Department to approve a new female crash-test dummy to replace the decades-old male-based model. The goal is to address women’s higher injury and death rates in crashes (duh) by better matching female anatomy. Federal adoption for safety tests using the female isn’t guaranteed.
Key Line: “In 2011, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration updated its rating system to include tests with female crash dummies, at about 4 feet 11 inches and 108 pounds, with a rubber jacket around the chest to represent breasts. But most of those tests required the female dummy to be tested in the passenger seat or the back seat, not in the driver’s seat, even though licensed female drivers outnumber licensed male drivers by about three million.”
Source: New York Times
PREGNANCY + POSTPARTUM
What: An op-ed in the New England Journal of Medicine looks at the Trump administration’s warnings about the safety of antidepressants, especially SSRIs, during pregnancy. They explain how the structure of the research makes things more confusing, because most studies are observational and hard to interpret. (And randomized control trials are considered unthical.) Earlier reports suggested links to birth defects or autism, but newer, larger studies that properly adjusted for factors like depression itself found little or no increased risk. The authors conclude that SSRIs appear safe for pregnant people when confounding is well-controlled and urge the FDA to stick to evidence-based messaging.
Key Line: “These findings underscore how powerful confounding by indication and related factors can be in evaluations of the association between SSRIs and adverse pregnancy outcomes and make it clear that incomplete control for confounders has fueled decades of conflicting results.”
Source: New England Journal of Medicine
ABORTION ACCESS
What: ProPublica reports that yet another woman has died for lack of abortion care. Tierra Walker, a 37-year-old mother from San Antonio with high blood pressure, diabetes, and a history of preeclampsia, repeatedly sought an abortion to protect her health but was turned down under Texas’ abortion ban. She later died at 20 weeks pregnant, after doctors failed to classify her severe condition as an emergency. ProPublica had over a dozen OBGYNs review Walker’s medical files and all of them said she would not have died if she ended her pregnancy.
Key Line: “Walker had known that abortion was illegal in Texas, but she had thought that hospitals could make an exception for patients like her, whose health was at risk. The reality: In states that ban abortion, patients with chronic conditions and other high-risk pregnancies often have nowhere to turn. They enter pregnancy sick and are expected to get sicker. Yet lawmakers who wrote the bans have refused to create exceptions for health risks.”
Source: ProPublica
What: The Supreme Court appeared inclined to let an anti-abortion pregnancy center in New Jersey challenge a state subpoena for its donor records in federal court. The subpoena, issued in 2023 by the state attorney general, sought names and contact details of donors to First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which works to discourage abortion. The justices focused on whether the group could sue now, a procedural issue rooted in post-Roe scrutiny of abortion-related organizations.
Key Line: “If the clinics win, it could clear the way for them to continue their First Amendment challenge in the federal courts.”
Source: New York Times
MENOPAUSE
What: USA Today dives in to how many women spend years seeing multiple doctors before getting a menopause or perimenopause diagnosis, with most physicians lacking formal menopause training. Even as a $20 billion menopause industry grows, access to effective treatment—especially hormone replacement therapy—remains limited, though new FDA guidance may ease prescribing barriers. Some women turn to pricey concierge clinics or telehealth services just to be heard and treated properly.
Key Line: “Most doctors – even gynecologists – didn’t receive adequate training on menopause during medical school, according to a study in the Journal of The Menopause Society. Less than one-third of the almost 100 obstetrics and gynecology residency program directors recently surveyed said they received training in their residencies.”
Source: USA Today