Women's health

Companies and Instagram influencers are selling cosmetic products for vulvas and "wellness" products for vaginas, which could put people at risk for infection and bacterial vaginosis. Photo by kvladimirv/via Adobe Stock

Beauty products for vulvas? These doctors say don’t buy it

By Jamie Leventhal

Does the placenta carry germs? What parents should know before they eat one

What started as an innocent look into the trend of people consuming placentas uncovered a heated academic debate over whether the placenta has a microbiome.

By Nsikan Akpan

How access to period products removes a barrier to education

A growing number of states are exempting menstrual products from tax. Advocates for period equity argue taxing these supplies is unfair because periods are a necessity, not a choice. And some schools and universities are now opting to provide these…

By Kavitha Cardoza, Education Week

St. Louis abortion clinic to defy state over preliminary pelvic exam

Calling the exam requirement "disrespectful and dehumanizing," a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman confirmed that the St. Louis clinic no longer performs it during a consultation at least 72 hours before an abortion. Doctors do perform a pelvic exam at the time…

By Jim Salter, Associated Press

Activists across U.S. protest new wave of abortion bans

At the U.S. Supreme Court, statehouses and other sites across the nation, abortion rights supporters held rallies Tuesday in opposition to the wave of sweeping abortion bans being enacted this year in Midwestern and Southern states.

By David Crary, Associated Press

New abortion laws sow confusion and uncertainty at clinics

By Kim Chandler, Sudhin Thanawala, Associated Press

Georgia , Kentucky , Mississippi and Ohio have passed laws that prohibit abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected — about six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.

Missouri’s GOP-led legislature passes 8-week abortion ban

By Summer Ballentine, Associated Press

If enacted, the ban would be among the most restrictive in the U.S. It includes exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.

U.S. to require breast density information after mammograms

By Matthew Perrone, Associated Press

The Food and Drug Administration's proposed rules would standardize the information given to millions of women following scans to detect breast cancer.

What we know about the FDA’s new postpartum depression drug

By Laura Santhanam

A new treatment could offer much-needed help to some new mothers with this disorder, but questions remain about how affordable or accessible it will be.

Planned Parenthood group from western states adds Indiana, Kentucky in ‘strategic alliance’

By Rick Callahan, Associated Press

Planned Parenthood's affiliate overseeing Hawaii and three western states announced Friday that it was adding Indiana and Kentucky, a first-of-its-kind consolidation based not on geography but on reallocating resources to fight new abortion restrictions in the Midwest and South.