In early 2023, I left a comfortable job to start a women’s health company. I was fed up with the status quo; that women constantly have to advocate for themselves in the U.S. medical system, and frequently don’t have the information to do so.
When I was a student at MIT, I had an IUD that constantly hurt from the day it was inserted. I was relatively miserable. I went to the doctor several times, but they said it was normal to experience pain for a long time after insertion. It wasn’t until the topic of IUDs came up in casual conversation that I learned that IUDs can be embedded in the uterine lining, and that this could be the source of the pain. I advocated more aggressively for an ultrasound, and they finally confirmed that the left arm was indeed embedded in my uterus. Even so, the doctor said that it was still effective and that I “should be using the best form of birth control” - I had to further advocate for it to be removed. I was so relieved when the IUD was finally out, 9 months from the day I got it.
Unfortunately, my story is far from the only one like this. My college friend grew up with extreme period cramps, and was told to just “suck it up” throughout middle and early high school. She missed school days and birthdays and playdates just suffering from the pain. She finally learned about endometriosis through her own research and asked her physician for birth control to manage the pain. Her family was initially against the idea - the stigma of taking birth control before adulthood is a common theme. My friend advocated repeatedly for an IUD and is now immensely happy for the relief it provides, to this day. She doesn’t have a formal diagnosis of endometriosis - the condition itself can only be diagnosed surgically, and doesn’t have a cure, despite affecting roughly 1 in 10 women in the U.S. [1]
Are these experiences unique to my social circles? If you visit the reddit subforums r/birthcontrol, r/TwoXChromosomes, and r/endometriosis, there are thousands of women who post about facing similar issues every day. They want advice on how to advocate for themselves; just want to understand what is happening in their own bodies. And if my friend and I are facing issues like this as privileged women at a private university, what about other young women with less resources? A young doctor I talked to while building the startup described many of the low-income patients at his practice as “too stupid to take birth control.” Medical paternalism, sexism, and the eugenic origins of birth control may be at least partially at fault here, as well as abysmal sexual health education in the majority of U.S. states.
The results of poor sexual health care and poor sex ed are appalling. Nearly one-third of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned [2]. 70% of women surveyed by KFF don’t feel like they had the information they needed to choose a birth control method they wanted, and 31% of users experience side effects from birth control [3]. 27% of women of reproductive age either don’t know that emergency contraceptives are available over the counter or have never heard of them [3]. So many women learn about sexual health through inaccurate sources - friends, influencers, and internet discussions. But they may not have a choice, if their provider dismisses their concerns (if they can even get an appointment to begin with [4]).
It’s time to do better. It’s time to invest in women’s health research [5], to gather better data, to provide better care, to reduce stigma, to shine light on all our blind spots. It’s time to fund femtech startups and organizations. It’s time to fix a broken system and to honor women’s bodily autonomy. Let’s get to it.
References
1. OASH. Endometriosis. womenshealth.gov. Published January 30, 2019. https://www.womenshealth.gov/a-z-topics/endometriosis
2. Health Statistics C. U.S. Pregnancy Rates Drop During Last Decade. www.cdc.gov. Published April 10, 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2023/20230412.htm
3. Frederiksen B, Ranji U, Long M, Diep K, 2022. Contraception in the United States: A Closer Look at Experiences, Preferences, and Coverage. KFF. Published November 3, 2022. https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/report/contraception-in-the-united-states-a-closer-look-at-experiences-preferences-and-coverage/
4. Kharraz O. Long waits to see a doctor are a public health crisis. STAT. Published May 2, 2023. https://www.statnews.com/2023/05/02/doctor-appointment-wait-times-solutions/
5. Smith K. Women’s health research lacks funding – these charts show how. www.nature.com. Published May 3, 2023. https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-01475-2/index.html