On Achill Island, Ireland, an untrained woman was prosecuted for acting as a midwife in 1932. In her defense, she argued that she intervened only in an emergency “to save the mother and child.” Here, local authorities decided “not to press the case hard and to ask for a light penalty.”1 Controversies like this were… Read more →
Category: Health and Wellness
Women’s Health Care: Not Just for Women Anymore
Mammogram waiting rooms are sometimes different from other medical waiting areas. If you’re going to get an x-ray of your knee or any other body part, you stay fully clothed until you are called into a private exam room. But if you’re going for a mammogram and then a follow-up ultrasound (a separate procedure), you… Read more →
March Madness and the Sterilization of Basketball Fans
I was so surprised the first time I saw a commercial on television advertising sterilization. Yes, that’s right. Once a year, during March Madness, the annual NCAA college basketball tournament, urologists across the country encourage men to visit their offices to get vasectomies. This is a good time to have the procedure done, the pitch… Read more →
Women and Alcohol: Let’s Talk About the Real Problem
The CDC’s recent sexist and patronizing warning about women and alcohol managed to outrage huge numbers of people and provoke some excellent responses from commentators throughout the nation. Did the statement get released just before Super Bowl Sunday — a day when drinking spikes, followed by an increase in calls to rehab centers.? What were… Read more →
Sex and Gender in a Petri Dish
The HeLa cell line, infamously derived in 1951 from the tumor of Henrietta Lacks, was cultured and immortalized to provide standardized research material for scientists, generating an astonishing 74,000 scientific publications. HeLa, originating from “female” cells, became the most widely used cell line in twentieth century biomedical science, including in critical areas such as cancer… Read more →
The History of a Wrist: When Historians Fall Over
In mid-September, I fell over my back door step and landed on my wrist. The pain was so bad it made me vomit, and a lengthy trip to the local Minor Injuries Unit ensued. X-rays were done and a partial plaster cast applied, only to be removed 24 hours later at the Trauma Unit in… Read more →
Happy Miscarriages: An Emotional History of Pregnancy Loss
An article published earlier this year in Obstetrics and Gynecology exposed Americans’ misunderstandings about miscarriage. A team of researchers asked over 1,000 adults about their knowledge of miscarriage, including how common it is and why it occurs. Among the more common misperceptions: 55% of respondents reported that miscarriage was uncommon (occurring in 5% or less… Read more →
Milk Sharing: What History Can Teach Us
Milk sharing has been in the news lately. In 2013, Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, OH analyzed over 100 samples of breast milk being sold online and found that 10% of the samples were contaminated with cow’s milk. Almost 75% of the samples contained disease-causing bacteria, presumably linked to poor collection and storage practices.1 As… Read more →
Toxics in our Living Rooms
The comfortable chair that I just bought and sit in for hours each day is giving me a sore throat and making my eyes sting. I know that sounds crazy, but I’ve been experimenting for about a month now, and I can say for certain that after about a half hour of sitting in it… Read more →
Premature Birth and the Right to Grieve
There are quite a few ways to experience loss of pregnancy. When I was expecting my own daughter, no woman ever warned me about what could go wrong during pregnancy and delivery. I was told to be wary of sharing the news of pregnancy until the end of the first trimester, but also that I… Read more →