Infertility Treatment is Stressful: But Does Stress Affect the Chances of Getting Pregnant?
It is common for women experiencing infertility and undergoing fertility treatment to experience significant emotional distress. Many women, reasoning that their emotional health influences their physical functioning, worry that the stress and anxiety they experience in this context may hinder their ability to become pregnant.
In Brief: Menopausal Symptoms Usually Go Untreated
In this study, half of women aged 45 to 60 years reported experiencing menopausal symptoms. 69% of these women reported that their symptoms have negatively  affected their lives. Among the women who endorsed menopausal symptoms, 72% had not received any treatment for their symptoms and 77% reported that they had not discussed treatment options with their healthcare providers.
From the North American AED Pregnancy Registry: The Newer Anticonvulsants Appear to Be Safer
While it is well-established that several of the older anticonvulsants, including valproate (Depakote), carry a significant teratogenic risk, less is known about the reproductive safety of the newer antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). The North American AED Pregnancy Registry was established in 1997 for pregnant women in the United States and Canada at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The purpose of the registry is to obtain and publish information on the frequency of major malformations among infants whose mothers have taken one or more AEDs during pregnancy.
Postpartum PTSD is Probably More Common Than You Think
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs in approximately 10% of all women at some point in their lifetime. PTSD tends to occur more commonly in women during their childbearing years, yet we have only recently begun to look more closely at the incidence of PTSD associated with childbirth.Â
The Affordable Care Act: Improving Women’s Access to Health Care
One of the goals of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is to improve women’s access to health care. In the past, women could be denied insurance coverage because they were women or could be charged more for insurance than their male counterparts.