We’ve all heard people sprout the phrase, “go on, you’re eating for two now” at barbecues, dinner parties and wherever food is being served, forcing pregnant women to decline offers of more and more food from well-meaning friends and family. During pregnancy, a woman’s nutrient requirements increase by between 10% and 50%, depending on the specific nutrient. But her energy intake only needs to increase in the range of 15% to 25%.

It’s evident that contraception, when used correctly and consistently, helps women and couples avoid pregnancy until they’re ready to become parents. Contraception has helped millions of women (and men) stay in school, achieve personal and professional life goals, and plan for healthy pregnancies. Now, a new contraceptive intrauterine system (IUS), Skyla, will be added to the array of options a woman can choose from to prevent pregnancy.

A new infographic from the group Health Care Colleges looks at how women are increasingly becoming involved with health start-ups. According to the graphic, there are some 8.3 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., and 20 percent of those are in the health care and social assistance fields. This may be somewhat unsurprising when you consider than women are said to make 80 percent of the healthcare decisions for their families.

Reproductive health and rights were once again the subject of extensive debate in state capitols in 2012. Over the course of the year, 42 states and the District of Columbia enacted 122 provisions related to reproductive health and rights. One-third of these new provisions, 43 in 19 states, sought to restrict access to abortion services. Although this is a sharp decline from the record-breaking 92 abortion restrictions enacted in 2011, it is the second highest number of new abortion restrictions passed in a year.

A new campaign started by actress and activist Martha Plimpton, Lizz Winstead of the Daily Show and others is taking its cue from Hester Prynne when it comes to women's reproductive rights. A Is For "is a campaign challenging the traditional meaning of the scarlet letter by encouraging women, and the men who support them, to wear the A proudly."

Have you ever looked up at the night sky and wondered what kinds of life might exist out there? Well, you can look down – at your belly button that is – and wonder the exact same thing. According to research published today in PLOS ONE, the belly button is home to an array of bacterial life ranging from the common (like Staphylococci) to the rare (like Archaea which have never been found before on human skin).

HIV is rarely talked about in our community, and people living with the virus are inevitably discriminated against and cast out by their friends and family. Over the years, our organization, Women for Empowerment, Development and Gender Reform, has worked hard to unravel myths about the virus — its transmission, prevention and treatment — and fight the terrible stigma and isolation faced by those infected.

By Casey Krosser

Peanuts are the most common cause of severe allergic reactions to food, including anaphylaxis, the name given to the rapid onset of allergic reactions all through the body including throat swelling, itchy rashes, and wheezing. Peanut allergy is on the rise, and it’s scary. Even worse, we don’t yet know what is causing it. It’s the perfect storm for the creation of a medical myth that eating peanuts while pregnant causes allergies!

Each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) releases information on the number of abortions in the United States. Newly published data from 2009 shows that rates of abortion overall have decreased 5 percent since 2008 to the lowest levels since 2000. In general, rates of abortion were highest right after legalization, fell steadily in the 1980s and 1990s, and started to level off in the past decade.

Nearly 23 percent of US women of childbearing age met or exceeded the median blood levels for three environmental chemical pollutants—lead, mercury, and PCBs, a new study shows. All but 17.3 percent of the thousands of women aged 16 to 49 were at or above the median blood level for one or more of these chemicals, which are passed to fetuses through the placenta and to babies through breast milk.

Because today’s parents don’t have first-hand experience with dangerous infectious diseases they can be misled by myths about the supposed dangers of childhood vaccination: for instance, whooping cough vaccine causes brain damage; the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism and vaccination causes cot death or sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). There is no truth to any of these claims.

Over the past week, two major medical associations have issued statements supporting easier access to birth control. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended in its statement that birth control pills be made available over the counter, while the American Academy of Pediatrics argued that emergency contraception (the so-called "morning after pill") be made available to teenagers.

The old saying that you should wait at least 30 minutes after eating before you swim is based on the idea that after a big meal, blood will be diverted away from your arms and legs, towards your stomach’s digestive tract. And if your limbs don’t get enough blood flow to function, you’re at risk of drowning. But is it sound advice, or is it just parents wanting a 30-minute break to relax after a big lunch?