9 Things Women’s Health Doctors Would Never Do
Between periods, menopause, perimenopause and pregnancy, being a woman can be a lot on the body.
More, women’s health just isn’t as studied as men’s health. Women largely weren’t included in medical research and clinical trials until the early 1990s (yes, you read that right, only 30 years ago), which has caused gaps in knowledge when it comes to health treatments for women.
Now, there are entire practices and specialities that focus on the differences in health outcomes for women, and doctors who are passionate about furthering research.
We spoke with doctors who focus on various aspects of women’s health about the health habits they avoid and what they wish all patients knew about their well-being. Here’s what they’d never do:
1. Discount the importance of movement.
“I’m moving all day long. And I think if everyone can make it a habit to just keep moving, our general health would be better in so many ways,” said Dr. Priya Freaney, a cardiologist and women’s heart health specialist at Northwestern Medicine in Illinois. Freaney added that she stretches every day at a minimum to prep her body for a day of rushing around.
“I run a postpartum hypertension clinic where I see new moms who have had blood pressure or other heart problems during pregnancy, and I tell people that as new moms, you have to be kind of creative in where you get your movement because there’s not a lot of time and there’s a lot of other responsibility,” Freaney said.
Trying to fold in movement whenever you can is key, whether that’s taking the stairs, going on stroller walks or walking instead of driving to your errands, she noted.
“Certainly compared to generations previous to us, we have more of an emphasis on exercise. Most people have sitting jobs, we spend most of our day sedentary, and we know that the biggest killer of women is heart disease, so as we get older, it becomes more and more important to protect our hearts, keep those arteries clear by doing things like exercising,” added Dr. Brintha Vasagar, a family physician in Wisconsin.
Exercise can also lessen feelings of anxiety and depression, help you sleep better and lowers the risk of certain cancers, including breast cancer.
2. Skip out on nutrition.
All three experts told HuffPost that healthy eating is one of the pillars they stick to for their current health and future health. This means fresh foods and less meat for Dr. Clara Paik, the co-chief of the division of general obstetrics and gynecology at UC Davis Health in California.
Vasagar described diet as well-being 101 and said she limits processed foods and focuses on lean meats, fresh fruits and veggies.
Freaney said she follows an 80-20 rule, where 80% of the time she eats nutritious foods and the other 20% of the time she chooses foods that may not have a big nutritional benefit but are celebratory or joy-inducing.
Freaney also tries to limit bready sweets, overall, because of their high levels of cholesterol and saturated fats. She also cooks at home often and makes extra so she has easy, healthy meals throughout the week.
3. Ignore their numbers.
Both Vasagar and Freaney said it’s important that you know your numbers — meaning, the factors that are generally checked through routine wellness and blood tests such as your blood pressure, blood sugar levels and cholesterol, in addition to your weight.
Many people wait until they have a problem to get their numbers checked, but that isn’t the way to live a long, healthy life, noted Vasagar.
“It’s those prevention strategies — knowing what your blood pressure is, knowing what your ideal weight should be for your body size, knowing what your sugars are and if you’re at risk for diabetes — catching those things early,” Vasagar said.
Having high blood pressure and high cholesterol can put you at heightened risk of developing heart disease, but, lifestyle changes like diet and exercise can help get these numbers in a healthy range, and medication can help, too, noted Vasagar.
“That’s why it’s so important to know your numbers early, so you can do something about it, attack it and keep your health as optimal as possible for as long as possible,” Vasagar said.
4. Disregard their heart disease risk.
As mentioned above, heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the United States — a fact that many people don’t realize, said Freaney.
“Sixty million women in the United States have some form of heart disease and 80% of that is preventable to some degree,” Freaney noted.
“The common forms of heart diseases that can affect and ultimately kill women start early in life and accumulate silently in the body without us realizing it … before they come to clinical significance, before we feel something that leads our doctors to discover it,” she said.
The earlier you can understand and address your heart disease risk factors (things like diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure) the better, Freaney said.
“So, one piece of advice is that it is never too early for a woman to seek advice about their heart health,” she noted.
Grace Cary via Getty Images
It’s important that you know your health numbers, including blood pressure, so you can keep them in control and make changes to stay healthy.
5. Purchase scented creams and washes for their genitals.
“I really tell people, and I myself, never douche or put something to cleanse your vagina,” Paik said.
“You’re basically getting rid of the normal flora that’s supposed to be there,” she said.
Flora is necessary for maintaining a healthy pH balance, maintaining a barrier against bacteria and fungal infections and more. So, disrupting it can cause problems.
“Women are extremely, almost too, hygienic in that area because they want to smell nice, and that’s a particular area of concern,” Paik noted.
While lots of brands market lotions and soaps for the genital region, they aren’t necessary or even safe. “Just normal showering and washing with water is all you need to do in that area. You do not need to use soaps, perfumes, bath bombs, douching. I avoid any of that,” she said.
6. Skip prenatal vitamins when pregnant and trying to get pregnant.
“For pregnant women, I always tell them to take prenatal vitamins,” Paik said.
“The folic acid in the prenatal vitamins is not the same as in multivitamins, it has an extra dose of folic acid, which is important for preventing spinal cord abnormalities in the baby,” she said.
People who are trying to get pregnant should also take prenatal vitamins, Paik said.
7. Ignore the impact that pregnancy complications can have on your heart health.
According to Freaney, pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes can put you at higher risk of heart disease later in life.
Research shows that people who had preeclampsia are at higher risk of stroke and those who had gestational diabetes are more likely to have heart artery calcification. This is true even if your blood sugar levels and other heart health markers go back to normal after pregnancy, Freaney noted.
“Individuals who have had pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia or gestational diabetes should have a proactive discussion with their doctors about how they can reduce their risk of heart disease,” Freaney said.
8. Suffer in silence during perimenopause and menopause.
“Menopause is a big topic these days … every woman is so different in terms of how they view and feel during menopause,” Paik said.
Some folks have hot flashes and night sweats for a few months while others are plagued with tough symptoms for years and years, she noted.
No matter how menopause impacts you, it isn’t a time to throw your hands up and say “oh well” or think you have to silently push through the discomfort. “I, myself, just realized, ‘Wow, this is the latter half of my life, I have one life to live. I better take good care of myself,’” Paik said.
“I really kicked into the nutrition and exercise and just trying to keep myself healthy, rather than dealing with illness once it happens,” she noted. And going on hormone treatment is also a good option for many women, Paik added.
“I know that estrogen has been a really hot topic, and that also is one of those things where our medical opinions on hormone replacement and the benefits and risks of estrogen have changed over time as we’ve gotten more information,” Vasagar said.
For a while, women strayed away from hormone treatments because of fears of breast cancer risk, Vasagar noted.
“Now, I think we’re starting to get back into how can we use hormones to benefit women, protecting their heart health, protecting from osteoporosis, while also mitigating any risk that each individual has towards breast cancer and some other things that estrogen can contribute to,” Vasagar said.
9. Ignore the impact menopause has on cardiovascular health.
Not only does menopause bring hot flashes, mood changes and bone density loss, it also brings negative changes to heart health.
“There’s a big shift that happens there. We lose our natural estrogen levels, and with the loss of natural estrogen, our whole cardiometabolic profile shifts for the worst,” Freaney said.
“I try to counsel my female patients that the years around menopause are really a time of accelerating cardiovascular risk, and we need to go into that decade of life in the most optimal cardiovascular health to brace ourselves for this transition that is going to inevitably come to every woman,” she said.
Around menopause, your blood pressure increases, your LDL cholesterol (also known as the bad cholesterol) goes up and your HDL cholesterol (your good cholesterol) goes down, according to Freaney. Your fat mass goes up while your muscle mass goes down, she added. Your sleep and mood worsens, too, which can have downstream effects on exercise and nutrition — because who wants to go for a bike ride after a night of bad sleep?
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“There’s a whole batch of things that happen together that, when taken in full, create an overall riskier cardiovascular environment for a woman,” Freaney said.
“A lot of this people don’t realize it’s going to happen, and so they haven’t gone into the menopausal years optimizing for it,” she noted. If you can focus on strength training to build muscle mass and setting good cardiovascular exercise habits and nutrition habits, you’ll be more equipped to handle these changes and counteract them, Freaney said.
And, this is true no matter if you’re in menopause, post-menopausal or pre-menopausal — it’s never too early or late to make a change.
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