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For women who have spent decades trying to be the perfect mother, physician, partner, daughter, or friend, it can feel like we're suddenly failing at things that once came easily. But maybe we're looking at it all wrong. Maybe this stage of life isn't teaching us how to avoid mistakes. Maybe it's teaching us how to make peace with them.

The pelvic floor is a group of 14 muscles located at the bottom of your pelvis. These muscles support your bladder, rectum, and reproductive organs. Imagine a hammock or sling stretching across the bottom of your pelvis. That supportive hammock is your pelvic floor. When it's functioning well, you probably don't think about it. When it's not, you'll know.

Why aren't we talking about perimenopausal sexual dysfunction? Women's health has spent decades being the black sheep of medicine. Conditions affecting millions of women have often been dismissed, minimized, or simply ignored. Sexual health may be one of the best examples. Let's fix that.

Why does the brain take risks? The answer is complicated, but dopamine plays a starring role. Dopamine is often called the "feel-good" neurotransmitter, but that's only part of the story. It's released not only when we experience something pleasurable, but also when we anticipate a reward. Sometimes the possibility of joy can be just as powerful as the joy itself.

Adult friendships are hard. But you know what’s even harder? Losing the childhood friendships, you thought would survive every stage of life. And when I say childhood, I don’t mean elementary school. I mean that long stretch of time before adulthood fully settled in — before marriages, careers, children, and grief reshaped us. My twenties still felt young enough to be considered childhood in their own way. Honestly, at twenty-eight, I was still very much a kid. A couple of we

PMOS can look very different from person to person, which is one reason it is often overlooked.

Motherhood changes people in ways that are difficult to explain until you live it yourself. Whether you are raising toddlers, teenagers, adult children, stepchildren, or supporting others in a caregiving role, becoming a mother shifts your priorities, identity, emotions, and understanding of love. For me, motherhood has been humbling, exhausting, funny, overwhelming, and deeply meaningful all at once. These are the biggest lessons I’ve learned from being a mother. 1) Motherho

Let’s talk bones. Not the Halloween kind—the ones quietly holding you together while you scroll this. Osteoporosis is a condition where bone density decreases and the internal structure of bone weakens, increasing fracture risk. Osteopenia is the early stage of bone loss—the warning sign before osteoporosis develops. Osteoporosis affects 200 million people worldwide. Eighty percent of cases are women. After age 50, 1 in 2 women will have an osteoporosis-related fracture.

Burning mouth syndrome- an often overlooked condition of middle age

A blog about photos and what the story they tell.

Estrogen. Let’s talk about the positive. More people in perimenopause are finally having their symptoms taken seriously and addressed. And in 2025, the FDA removed the black box warning on estrogen products—a pretty big shift. Back in 2002, the Women’s Health Initiative study linked hormone therapy to increased risks of heart attacks, strokes, and pulmonary embolism. That study changed practice overnight. But over the following decades, more nuanced research showed that those

Have you heard about this Tik Tok trend? (Yes. Yes. I am in the know). Mom—what were you like in the ’90s? ahem… cue Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls… and begin In the 1990s, I was: 1) Ditzy (on purpose).I had been a full-on nerd growing up—mathletes, teacher’s pet, the whole deal. But in the ’90s, being smart wasn’t exactly cool. Life goals involved being like Kelly Taylor, not Andrea Zuckerman (Thursday night 90210 viewings were quintessential ’90s dogma). Then, my sophomore year,

“Hair” raising topic ahead. As estrogen decreases, its ratio to testosterone changes—and suddenly, hair changes enter the picture. There are two main things that can happen to hair in perimenopause and menopause. First: thinning or loss of hair on your head (we will talk about this in a future blog). Second: extra hair growth on your face. Bold and beautiful: A striking illustration captures the confident expression of a bald woman with vibrant red lips and a bright orange co

This past weekend, I visited my college. It was a real college visit for my youngest, and while I’ve been back to campus a handful of times since graduating nearly thirty years ago, it was the first time I was there in an official capacity: as the parent of a prospective student. As I walked the campus, I realized I wasn’t just revisiting my college years—I was imagining what I hoped my son would carry into his own, IF he decided to come here. A mother and her son stroll acro

Ok. So it’s March. Colon Cancer Awareness Month. We’ve already talked about colonoscopies. We’ve also talked about some of the less glamorous side effects of anesthesia. Apparently, I have chosen this month to become your friendly neighborhood poop-and-propofol correspondent, so let’s move on to alternatives to the colonoscopy. Illustration of the human digestive system, highlighting the structure and arrangement of the intestines within the abdominal cavity. Image created by

Any time you undergo a medical procedure, there are risks. And it is the doctor’s job to review those risks. In my previous post, I recommended colonoscopy screening for all people at average risk starting at age 45. When you give consent for a colonoscopy, you are acknowledging that there are several risks including (but not limited to) bleeding, infection, and perforation. But in this piece, I want to talk about a more subtle “side effect” or “risk” that is rarely discussed

Ok. It’s March. It’s Colon Cancer Awareness Month. Let’s get into this shit…literally. The colon (also known as the large intestine) is about 5 feet long. That’s almost as long as me! You may remember from high school biology that the colon is the organ that absorbs water and some vitamins from waste as it moves through your body. And at the end of that long, noble journey? Poop. (And yes, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people say “poo” instead of “poop.” I don’t know w

Thanks to social media (and sometimes my children), I occasionally manage to catch onto a trend before it becomes outdated. This is not a skill I had in high school, so I consider it a midlife achievement. Yesterday I was scrolling Instagram and came across a post about a 23-year-old woman from India, Sithara Jahan. She asked her strict parents for permission to go on a girls’ trip to Kashmir—something she was absolutely sure they would say no to. And surprisingly… they said

Sometime in my 40s, I started waking up with pain in my fingers. The joints ached, and I had to negotiate with them first thing in the morning before they would fully straighten. It wasn’t just my fingers. My back carried a dull, persistent ache when I got out of bed, and my ankles felt… less trustworthy. Those days of bounding down the stairs two steps at a time? Gone.Now I reached for the handrail and descended carefully — and, uncomfortably, images of my grandmother flashe

Since being born during the bicentennial year in a small hospital in Hoboken, New Jersey, I have traveled to India eight times—five during childhood and three in adulthood. Last night, when I couldn’t sleep (jet lag, perimenopause, and a new bed), I found myself thinking about how, on each trip, I’ve seen India through a different lens. And to be honest, that realization frustrated me. In my fiftieth year of life, wasn’t I capable of seeing things consistently? Was it strange