Women’s Healthcast

In All About Birth Control, Part 2, Dr. Eliza Bennett tells us about how long-acting reversible contraceptives (think IUD or implant) work and provides an overview of permanent birth control methods. She also answered questions from listeners about birth control and pregnancy - when to stop before pregnancy, when to start back up after birth, and how different methods affect breastfeeding.

Dr. Bennett is an ob-gyn and expert in Family Planning in the UW Department of Ob-Gyn. If you missed All About Birth Control, Part 1, check it out to learn about how contraceptives work and how Dr. Bennett helps patients think through the right birth control options for them, as well as an in-depth conversation about the pill. 

More than 60 percent of reproductive-aged women use some kind of birth control. But there's a lot to consider when picking out the right method for you! 

Eliza Bennett is an ob-gyn and expert in family planning in the UW Department of Ob-Gyn. In part one of this two-episode series, Dr. Bennett discussed why people decide to use birth control, the basics of how hormonal and non-hormonal contraceptives work, how she helps patients choose the right methods for them, and answered *so many* detailed questions about The Pill.

Special thanks to the friends and listeners who shared their birth control questions for this episode! Stay tuned for Part 2, in which we discuss LARCs, permanent birth control, and how pregnancy and birth control mix.

Studies show that transgender and gender-nonconforming patients are highly likely to experience discrimination in a healthcare setting – up to 70%, according to one study from Lambda Legal. Dr. Cara King is trying to fix that.

Dr. King is developing a curriculum to develop cultural competence in medical students and residents training in the UW Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Comprehensive physician education, she says, is the first step in becoming skilled providers of care for transgender and gender-nonconforming patients.

Dr. King is a minimally invasive gynecologic surgeon in the UW Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is also a featured provider in the UW Health Gender Services Program.

Additional reading: World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care

Obesity can affect many aspects of women's health, from fertility to pregnancy complications to increased risk of some gynecologic cancers. 

In this episode, Dr. Paola Gehrig discusses the intersection of women's health and obesity. Dr. Gehrig is a professor and director of the gynecologic oncology division at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She discussed how obesity can increase the risk for more than a dozen types of cancer, why obesity is a growing issue around the world, and how physicians and medical professionals can approach the issue with patients.

May is Preeclampsia Awareness Month. This hypertensive pregnancy disorder affects up to 8 percent of pregnancies, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about it. Why does it happen? How can we predict or prevent it? Why do we still use the diagnosis and treatment tools developed in the 1960s? To learn more about preeclampsia, current clinical care standards and new discoveries on the horizon, I talked to two experts in the UW-Madison Department of Ob-Gyn.

Kara Hoppe is a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in the department. She deals with complex pregnancy conditions. Dr. Hoppe shared diagnostic criteria for preeclampsia, what she does when a patient develops the condition, and how hypertensive issues during pregnancy can affect your health later in life.

Derek Boeldt is a basic science researcher in the UW Department of Ob-Gyn. Since joining the Department of Ob-Gyn, Dr. Boeldt has focused his research on understanding the origins of preeclampsia and pioneering new ways to treat it.

Want to support preeclampsia research and awareness? Check out the Promise Walks coming up this spring. And the UW Ob-Gyn Promoting Healthy Pregnancies – Maternal-Fetal Health Fund also supports innovative research to help moms with high-risk pregnancy conditions!

We're all familiar with the concept of conscientious objection - opting out of something based on ethics or beliefs. But what about the idea that conscience can also propel us to do something?

In early March, Lisa Harris, MD, of the University of Michigan Medical School Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology delivered a special lecture to the UW Department of Ob-Gyn. After her Grand Rounds presentation on moral agency and the provision of contested reproductive health care, Dr. Harris discussed reproductive justice and how to be a good women's health advocate with the Women's Healthcast.

Dr. Harris is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical School and a renowned researcher on the intersection of women’s healthcare and policy.

David Kushner is a gynecologic oncologist in the UW Department of Ob-Gyn and a national expert in physician wellness. In 2018, ob-gyns reported the fourth-highest rate of burnout among US physicians. Dr. Kushner discussed what contributes to physician burnout, what it means for patients, and what the medical community is doing to address this issue.

Nearly 80 million Americans have some strain of the human papillomavirus, which can cause several types of cancer in men and women. The CDC recommends that adolescents receive the HPV vaccine, which protects against cancer-causing strains, but vaccine uptake remains low. To learn more about the virus, vaccination, and new projects to fight HPV at the University of Wisconsin, we talked to Dr. Jake Lauer of the UW Department of Ob-Gyn.

Dr. Kristen Sharp, assistant professor in general obstetrics and gynecology and medical director of the UW-Madison Department of Ob-Gyn's CenteringPregnancy program, plays pregnancy true or false and discusses the value of group prenatal care.

In the first episode of Women's Healthcast, Dr. Deborah Ehrenthal discusses Wisconsin's recent ranking as the worst state in the US for African-American infant mortality, and new health disparities initiatives in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Ehrenthal is the director of the UW Ob-Gyn Division of Reproductive and Population Health.