Jennifer Austin

Just when you thought everything worth studying had already been studied, out comes ground-breaking research on... drum roll please... lube. The entity thought only to belong in the nightstands of ...

It is a minority of women who go to their doctors knowing exactly which form of birth control is right for them. This is why entire clinic visits are dedicated to mulling through medical histories ...

Breast cancer is probably more publicized than any other form of cancer. Melissa Ethridge wrote a song about it, Lynn Redgrave published a book on it, and Betsy Johnson created a designer t-shirt ...

There is a New York City subway ad that has always caught my eye. Plastered to the inside of the trains is a poster depicting a disheveled, lonely-appearing teenage girl. She’s crouched over ...

You’ve heard them mistaken for each other before. On the news, in social circles, and even in some medical arenas, emergency contraception is stigmatized, mislabeled, and misconstrued as an ...

As if intrauterine devices (IUDs) haven't already received enough bad press throughout the last several decades, now the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning patients and providers to be ...

Just when you thought the iPhone couldn't get any smarter, Apple today announced pre-ordering for the iPhone4, a phone that allows you to video conference with your friends, shoot your own video ...

If right now you're thinking that abstinence-only education didn't work, here's some extra fuel for your politically-charged fire. Today the Centers for Disease Control, in conjunction with the ...

Your vagina? Probably not. Your vulva? Unclear. Or at least this is the general message when you scour the "tanning bed and cancer of the private parts" literature. As we leap lustfully toward a ...

It may not surprise you to hear that earlier last week, Bayer Pharmaceuticals announced the release of their much anticipated and novel combined oral contraceptive pill, Natazia. With a name that ...

If you've not gone through labor yourself, then you've likely heard someone else's delivery story, chocked-full of advice and warning: do get the epidural, don't get the epidural. Swayed by a ...

All hysterectomies are not alike. Whether performed abdominally or vaginally, with or without the cervix, and inclusive or exclusive of the tubes and ovaries, one surgeon's discarded tissue ...

We often think of endometriosis as a disease that affects reproductive-aged women. This is probably because the main worry with endometriosis (other than bothersome pain) is infertility. In ...

The more you learn about medicine and science, the more you should think, nothing is impossible. Menopause can happen to children, people who've never smoked can get lung cancer, and one in 10,000 ...

Looking for endometriosis during surgery is a little bit like searching for Waldo in a cartoon crowd. Except instead of painstakingly scanning the images of an agoraphobe's worst nightmare for ...

It's difficult to put a price tag on any one disease. The added costs of medication, doctors visits and surgeries only begin to hint at the kind of hefty figure that obesity or heart disease, for ...

Whoever doubted the stronghold of condoms was sorely mistaken. Pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections might seem like obvious enough incentives to "glove up," but now, new research suggests ...

Life, it seems, is polarized: you can be democratic or republican, Apple or PC, Leno or Conan, and for pain meds, Advil or Tylenol. For certain types of pain, the research has been fairly ...

There's a little-known fact about childbirth that not many parenting books mention: food is not allowed. Neither were drinks, until very recently. To the inexperienced laborer, this may not seem ...

Stigmatized sex lube is a thing of the past. Tomorrow's lubricant tones down the kinky and tunes in on a whole new wave of lube reform--organics. It's called, Yes, and its calming aqua-colored ...

Starting menopause is a lot like starting your period. Its arrival is heralded by years of funny changes (from breast buds and arm pit hair on the one end, to fatigue and flat-lining libido on the ...

Of all the cancer screening methods in this world, was there ever a more controversial procedure than the mammogram? Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been poured into determining when is the ...

A remedy of all ailments, black cohosh has saturated the shaman scene for centuries. Native Americans swore by its medicinal powers, using it on everything from sore throats to depression. ...

It's not the first time it's happened, but this latest lawsuit against Pfizer's menopause drugs, Provera, Premarin and Prempro, delivered a stinging blow to the pharmaceutical giant. The damages ...

As Andy Rooney once confessed, older women are far sexier than their younger counterparts. "Her libido is stronger because her fear of pregnancy is gone ... and her lovemaking is honed." A ...

Jennifer Aniston is not the only woman who has ever considered putting her eggs on ice. In the last twenty-some years since its creation, egg freezing, or oocyte preservation, has soared among ...

If you think you are alone in the vaginal itching camp, think again. As it turns out, the burning, itching and odorous discharge trio woefully known as a yeast infection is surprisingly common. So ...

It's one of the first and cheapest stops along the path of infertility treatment--intrauterine insemination, or IUI. As straightforward as it sounds, the process begins by retrieving a sperm ...

It's a confusing back and forth dance of information that, in some ways, resembles recent mammogram recommendations. First soy is good for you, then it's not, then it's good for you only in ...

(Continued from "The Rise of Repeat C-Sections: PART 1) ... In 2006, Sakala’s organization published a survey by researchers at Boston University that found that out of 1600 women who had ...

Margaret Hamilton never wanted a Cesarean section, for either of her children’s births. With her first child, it was a matter of weight. Doctors told her that because she was carrying a 10-pound ...

Why is it that when we think of eating disorders, we think of Mary-Kate Olsen's protruding clavicles or Nicole Richie's gaunt frame? While the majority of sufferers are, in fact, young women under ...

Infertility comes in all shapes and sizes. From the 18-year old woman with Turner's Syndrome whose ovaries aged too quickly to the 35-year old woman with breast cancer whose chemoradiation made ...

The process of egg donation is a relatively new concept. It started in the early 1980s and, interestingly enough, was more an act of altruism than a compensated business deal. If one woman ...

Painful periods, heavy menstrual bleeding and pain during defecation--all symptoms suggestive of that notoriously painful uterine lining disorder called endometriosis. Affecting up to one in 10 ...

Whoever said women should age with grace clearly did not understand all the complexities and frustrations of losing your estrogen stores. Yes, hot flashes are annoying and sleeping less takes ...

Amidst a flood of menopause therapies sworn to cast off hot flashes, yoga appears to deliver. We don't often think of it for this purpose, but this Eastern-based meditative practice that focuses ...

Ingrid Berman once said, "Happiness is good health and a bad memory," which sort of suggests that a healthy woman going through menopause (a time when memory seems muddiest) should be elated. And ...

It's eastern medicine at its finest: acupressure, or the relieving of ailments through direct pressure on the skin. No needles necessary, this cousin of acupuncture has a following that would ...

Decreased libido, loss of bone mass, weight gain and hot flashes: all signs of menopause, even for men. You read right, that change in energy and even change in breast tissue isn’t entirely unique ...

If you were sexually active in the 1970’s, you might remember the Dalkon Shield. A real lemon of contraceptive methods, the poorly designed T-shaped device allowed bacteria from the vagina to ...