Women's Healthcast

2020 was a year shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the women’s health realm, we have been especially concerned about what COVID means for pregnancy. On this episode of the Women’s Healthcast, Dr. Igor Iruretagoyena joined us to talk about COVID and pregnancy – whether pregnant people are at higher risk of severe illness with COVID, if pregnant people are eligible for vaccination, and other things to think about if you’re considering pregnancy during a pandemic. Dr. Iruretagoyena is the director of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at UW Health. Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine COVID-19 information for women and families American College of Ob-Gyns information for patients If you have requests or suggestions for health care topics to cover in 2021, let us know!

How much do you know about your pelvic floor? Angie Sergeant, nurse practitioner in the UW Health Women's Pelvic Wellness Clinic, joined the Women's Healthcast to talk about common pelvic floor questions, including risk factors for pelvic floor disorders, pelvic floor physical therapy and other interventions, and what visits to her clinic look like. Let us know what health issues you'd like to learn about! Email the Women's Healthcast team with your suggestions.

Health literacy – how well we can find, understand, and apply information to help us make health decisions – affects many areas of our lives. Reading nutrition labels in the grocery store, following instructions on prescription bottles, being able to tell whether an article shared by a high school acquaintance on social media is accurate – these are just a few of the ways health literacy pops up day-to-day. On this episode, Dr. Heidi Brown of the UW-Madison Department of Ob-Gyn and Jordan Spencer, medical student at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences talk about where to find accurate health information, resources for building health literacy skills, and how low health literacy exacerbates preexisting health disparities. Dr. Brown and Jordan recommend MedlinePlus and the MedlinePlus Guide to Healthy Web Surfing as tools to strengthen health literacy. Let us know what health issues you'd like to learn about! Email the Women's Healthcast team with your suggestions.

Economic policy has a significant effect on our individual health. And policies are not always equitable. Dr. Tiffany Green joined the Women's Healthcast to discuss ways systems and structures affect health: how health and economic security are cyclically linked, how COVID-19 has highlighted many structural inequities in our country, and important work she is doing in Dane County to improve Black maternal and infant health. Dr. Green is a health economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Green's recommended resources for understanding health policies: Health Affairs Dear Pandemic

September is Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month. On this episode of the Women’s Healthcast, Dr. Ryan Spencer talks about endometrial cancer, the most common gynecologic cancer in the United States. He shares risk factors for endometrial cancer, what diagnosis and treatment look like, and ways to reduce your risk of developing this type of cancer. Dr. Spencer also discusses his research into the national disparity in funding for gynecologic cancers compared to other types of cancer. Dr. Spencer is a gynecologic oncologist in the UW-Madison Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the UW Carbone Cancer Center.

As we learned on the last Women’s Healthcast, preterm birth is fairly common. But the rate of preterm birth is elevated for Black women in the United States, with approximately 13.8% of babies born preterm, according to the March of Dimes. Dr. Jasmine Zapata joins us on this Women’s Healthcast to talk about what being born prematurely can mean for children’s health outcomes, the significant racial gap in preterm birth rates as well as Black maternal and infant mortality, and some steps to help providers rebuild trust in the medical system for Black women. Dr. Zapata is a newborn hospitalist with UW Health and an assistant professor in the UW-Madison Department of Pediatrics

Preterm birth is fairly common, with one in eight women going into labor prior to 37 weeks of gestation, which qualifies as preterm.  On this episode of the Women’s Healthcast, Dr. Janine Rhoades talks about what causes preterm labor, what options are available to slow or stop labor, and what people can do to reduce their risk of delivering their babies early. Dr. Rhoades is a Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist in the UW-Madison Department of Ob-Gyn.

After giving her keynote lecture “What’s My Impact?” at the UW-Madison Department of Ob-Gyn’s Resident Research Day in early 2020, Dr. Amy Young joined the Women’s Healthcast to talk about the importance of inquiry in medicine, how she helps medical learners take their curiosity a step further, and why this spirit of lifelong learning means better care for patients.   Dr. Young is the Chief Clinical Officer of UT Health Austin, and Vice Dean of Professional Practice at Dell Medical School.

Hypertension, or chronic high blood pressure, affects nearly half of U.S. adults. On this episode of the Women’s Healthcast, maternal-fetal medicine specialist Dr. Kara Hoppe and research manager Jamie LaMantia talked about what causes hypertension, how it’s often treated, and why high blood pressure can be a concern in pregnancy. To learn more about or participate in the MyHEART study examining high blood pressure management in young adults, you can call 608-261-1880, email myheart@hip.wisc.edu, or visit myheartmychoice.org/ResearchStudy. To learn more about or participate in the Chronic Hypertension and Pregnancy study, you can reach the research coordinators’ office at 608-417-4218.

To celebrate LGBT Pride, we’re re-airing one of our most popular episodes: Safe Spaces: Making OB-Gyn Care LGBT-Friendly. For many LGBT people, past discrimination or concerns about discrimination from medical professionals can deter them from seeking health care. Pride Month (and every month) is a great time to look at how we make health care settings safe and inclusive spaces. On this episode of the Women’s Healthcast, Dr. Ruth Yemane discusses reproductive and sexual healthcare for LGBT patients. She also shares her suggestions for how health systems can work harder to make sure  lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people feel safe and comfortable throughout their healthcare experiences. Dr. Yemane is an academic specialist in general ob-gyn at UW-Madison.

Our healthcare system mounted a rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, which included pausing or delaying some non-essential or elective care, ramping up telehealth or video visits, and limiting in-person appointments for patient safety. It’s May 20 now, and at least in Wisconsin, we’re getting ready to loosen some restrictions and bring people back into clinics. On this episode, three doctors in the UW-Madison Department of Ob-Gyn discuss safety precautions and changes to prenatal, obstetrical, general women’s health, and gynecologic cancer care, as well as what’s happening the clinical research world. 1:00-24:48 - Dr. Makeba Williams discusses prenatal care, labor and delivery, contraceptive care and women's health screenings 24:49-37:40 - Gynecologic oncologist Dr. Lisa Barroilhet on balancing continuity of cancer care with reducing the risk of COVID-19 exposure 37:41-43:33 - Dr. David Kushner provides an overview on clinical studies opening back up, and safety precautions for participa

Stress, anxiety, grief, peace, joy, fear - pick an emotion, and it's likely been part of your COVID-19 pandemic experience. On this episode of the Women's Healthcast, Dr. Julianne Zweifel talks about the broad range of emotional responses people might be having right now, what behaviors might be influencing our feelings, and her tips for managing stress and anxiety.  Dr. Zweifel is a health psychologist in the UW-Madison Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is also part of the UW Ob-Gyn Wellness Committee, a group that has been hard at work this spring pulling together a wide variety of mental and physical wellness resources. Take a look at their website to find some of the resources Dr. Zweifel mentions in this episode: https://www.obgyn.wisc.edu/wellnessresources       

For 50 episodes and more than two years, the Women’s Healthcast has brought you informative interviews with a wide variety of women’s health experts. On this episode, we look back at clips from some of your favorite interviews on birth control; common conditions like endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, pelvic floor disorders, and menopause; preventing cervical cancer; adapting health care to meet more people’s needs; and more!

COVID-19 – also referred to as coronavirus – has drastically changed the way many of us live our lives. This episode is intended as a quick update and overview of resources related to COVID-19, and an update on what we know about the virus and pregnancy. This update is current as of March 25, but our knowledge of COVID-19 is changing rapidly. You can watch the following sites for updates as more information about COVID-19 and pregnancy becomes available:  Pregnancy & Breastfeeding – US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/pregnancy-breastfeeding.html Coronavirus (COVID-19), Pregnancy, and Breastfeeding: A Message for Patients - American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists https://www.acog.org/patient-resources/faqs/pregnancy/coronavirus-pregnancy-and-breastfeeding  Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): What You Need to Know About its Impact on Moms and Babies – March of Dimes https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/coronavirus-disease-covid-

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that many teen girls and young women may receive unnecessary pelvic exams and Pap tests. On this episode of the Women’s Healthcast, Dr. Bridget Kelly sat down to talk about when younger people should start getting pelvic exams and Pap tests, and what she covers in visits with her adolescent patients. Dr. Kelly is a general ob-gyn in the UW department of Ob-Gyn with a special interest in pediatric and adolescent gynecology.

February 24-March 1, 2020 is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. On this episode, UW Health pediatrician Dr. Paula Cody talks about how common eating disorders are, where fad diets fall on the disordered eating spectrum, how body image plays into disordered eating, and how we can work towards greater body acceptance as a culture. Resources in the episode:  Health At Every Size, Dr. Cody's favorite resource for moving towards body acceptance National Eating Disorders Association Cody's past blog posts about eating disorders (2020, 2019, 2018)

Infertility – the inability to get pregnant after one year of trying, or after six months for women over age 35 – is very common. 10 percent of women younger than 35, and about 25 percent of women between the ages of 35 and 40 have fertility challenges. On this episode of the Women’s Healthcast, we hear from Bala Bhagavath about how he and his team figure out what’s causing infertility, and the range of treatments available. Dr. Bhagavath is a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist in the UW Department of Ob-Gyn, and director of UW Health’s Generations Fertility Care clinic in Madison.

An ectopic pregnancy is any pregnancy that implants and starts to grow outside the uterus. These pregnancies can be dangerous, and require immediate treatment. Dr. Ashley Jennings joined the Women's Healthcast to talk about what we know and don't know about ectopic pregnancies, and why they need to be expediently managed.

We’ve talked a lot about birth control on this podcast before – how different methods work, what to think about when choosing birth control, how new technology is changing the landscape. But it's one thing to know how birth control works and how to choose the best method, and it's another thing entirely to actually have affordable, consistent access  to the full range of modern contraceptive methods. On this episode, UW Ob-Gyn Department Chair Dr. Laurel Rice provides an overview of the benefits of birth control, and discusses why she is a passionate advocate for universal contraceptive coverage. 

What were some of the biggest policies and issues that affected women’s health in 2019? What’s on the horizon for 2020? And how can we head into an important election year as informed voters? To answer these questions, the Women’s Healthcast invited special guest Sara Finger, excecutive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health. For 15 years, she has led the organization dedicated to helping women reach their optimal health, safety and economic security. Sara is also the host of the new podcast Wide Awake in Wisconsin, a monthly series to help listeners understand the importance of state-level policy. Every month until November 2020, she shares a peek at three key policy issues affecting women’s health, a conversation about important policy with special guests, and quick and easy opportunities to make a difference right away. You can listen on all popular podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Soundcloud and more! Vote.gov AskLearnVote.org