The MiDOViA Menopause Podcast: Real Talk on Hormones, Work, and Wellness for Midlife

Bone density doesn’t wait until your 60s, and neither should we. We’re joined by Marie Berry, a serial entrepreneur and global marketing executive, to talk about the moment a DEXA scan revealed osteopenia even though she felt strong, fit, and “healthy.” That shock sent her down a practical path of strength training, nutrition changes, and a new kind of daily movement that could actually stick, and...

You can Google a menopause symptom in five seconds and still feel more confused than when you started. That’s the tension we’re living in: unlimited information, limited clarity, and almost no time to sort what’s credible, what’s safe, and what actually fits our bodies. So when we heard about Natura AI, a natural health AI built to remember you, we wanted to know what it really is and what it isn’...

If you’ve ever been told to “push through” your period pain, heavy bleeding, or sudden mood swings, we want to give you a better baseline and better language for getting help. We’re sharing a Menstrual Hygiene Day webinar replay with Dr. Dombo, a board-certified OB-GYN and menopause-certified practitioner with a cross-cultural lens on how women experience periods, stigma, and care gaps. We break d...

Half the workforce menstruates, but most workplaces still operate as if periods never happen. That silence shows up in the worst moments: a surprise bleed, no supplies, no private place to manage it, and the scramble to get through a meeting or a full shift while hoping nobody notices. We talk candidly about why this gap persists and what it costs employees and employers, especially during perimen...

Most women hit midlife doing the “right” things and still feel worse: the same meals, the same workouts, the same hustle, and suddenly the results disappear. That’s not failure, it’s math. Your health equation changes in perimenopause and menopause, and trying to force your old inputs to produce old outputs is where frustration and burnout take over.  We sit down with Jill Foos, founder of Jill Fo...

Everything can feel like it changes at once in midlife, and “it’s just aging” doesn’t explain the full story. We sit down with Cynthia Thurlow, NP and author of The Menopause Gut, to unpack a missing link many women never hear about: as estrogen and progesterone decline in perimenopause and menopause, the gut microbiome can become a powerful driver of how we feel day to day. If you’re dealing with...

Pain that shows up in midlife has a special way of messing with your confidence. One day you’re fine, the next day your knee, hip, back, or shoulder is changing how you sleep, move, work, and show up for the people you love. We wanted a smarter answer than “that’s just aging,” so we sat down with Stacey Roberts, a longtime physical therapist and chronic pain expert, to talk about what’s actually h...

Sex and desire can change in midlife in ways that feel sudden, personal, and isolating. We wanted to pull this topic out of the shadows and put real language around what is actually happening in your body, your brain, and your life. Our guest, Dr. Sarah Berg, is a board-certified OBGYN and certified menopause practitioner known for a direct, honest approach, and she helps us replace shame with cla...

Menopause can feel like you woke up in a different brain, but what if the real story is that your brain has always worked this way and hormones are simply turning up the volume? We sit down with leadership coach and R.E.A.L Women founder Chellie Adler to talk about the often-missed link between perimenopause, menopause, and neurodivergence, especially ADHD in women and autism in women who were nev...

Silence around menopause helps no one—especially when cancer or surgery fast‑forwards the transition. We sit down with mindset and executive coach Kristin Swanson, a breast cancer survivor who navigated surgical menopause, to explore how data, values, and intuition can coexist when the path ahead is anything but clear. Kristin walks us through the moment she chose a double mastectomy, the journali...

What if the thing you’re chasing isn’t ahead of you, but within you? We sit down with Harper A. Bailey—public health leader and author of the memoir “It Was Her”—to unpack how grief can become a teacher, how creativity can act as medicine, and why midlife refuses to let us ignore our truth. From family health inequities that drew her to public health, to the dream that showed she was running from...

What if the missing piece in your health story isn’t willpower, it’s evidence and language? We welcome award-winning journalist Meghan Rabbitt, author of The New Rules of Women’s Health, for a candid, practical, and uplifting tour of the health span—from puberty and pelvic pain to perimenopause, hormone therapy, and post-menopause strength. Together, we unpack why “women aren’t small men” is more...

The quiet hours can change a life. We sit down with author and artist Laing Rikkers to trace how dawn writing, long walks, and a sudden loss opened a doorway from grief to growth—and how nature’s language can help you name what’s changing in midlife. Laing’s book, Morning Leaves, began as private morning pages for her children during lockdown and grew into a vivid map of becoming: palms bent by re...

What if menopause isn’t the end of something—but the beginning of your clearest, most powerful self? We sit down with Dr. Mindy Pelz—best-selling author of Age Like a Girl—to explore how declining estrogen rewires the brain and why that shift can upgrade focus, confidence, and purpose. Instead of treating symptoms like flaws, Mindy shows how depression, rage, anxiety, and brain fog are signals poi...

Tired of hearing that retirement means retreat? We sit down with Lustre co-founders Erica Baird and Karen Wagner to flip that script and show how midlife can be a launchpad for purpose, community, and power. They walked away from high-profile careers, hit the same identity shock so many of us feel, and built a modern space where women design what comes next with confidence and style. We dig into t...

Start with the lived experience, not the label. We sit down with gender-affirming menopause educator and advocate Lasara Firefox Allen to reframe menopause as a human transition that deserves respect, nuance, and choices. From the first hot flash to postmenopausal clarity, we map the terrain for trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse people who are too often erased by narrow clinical language and ou...

Menopause doesn’t clock out when we clock in—and ignoring that truth is costing organizations billions while pushing experienced talent to the margins. We sit down with Rachel Hughes of Alloy Women’s Health to unpack how symptoms like brain fog, sleep disruption, and hot flashes intersect with deadlines, shifts, and team dynamics. Through relatable stories and clear data, we map the ripple effects...

Menopause doesn’t have to mean white‑knuckling through sleepless nights, brain fog, and a maze of appointments. We sit down with Dr. Taylor Hahn, a board‑certified OBGYN and certified menopause practitioner, to map a clearer path: ask better questions, build a care team that truly engages, and use lifestyle medicine as a force multiplier for relief. Instead of cramming everything into a rushed vis...

Menopause isn’t experienced equally—and the differences are too big to ignore. We sit down with Dr. Kudzai Dombo, OB-GYN and Director of Advocacy and Outreach at Alloy Health, to explore why Black women often face earlier menopause, longer and more severe symptoms, and far less access to effective treatment. Drawing on the SWAN study’s decades of data, we connect dots between evidence, everyday ex...

Menopause shouldn’t feel like a mystery you have to solve alone. We sit down with Dr. Corinne Menn—board‑certified OB‑GYN, certified menopause practitioner, and cancer survivor—to clear the fog around estrogen, perimenopause, and modern, evidence‑based care. From the infamous Women’s Health Initiative to today’s safer formulations and smarter timing, we separate risk from rumor and show how contex...

What if stress isn’t the villain but the spark—and the real unlock is how extraordinary you decide to feel? We sit down with stress resiliency coach and former Microsoft leader Dat Tran to explore a fresh, human approach to burnout, anxiety, and midlife pressure. Dat shares how a car accident and cascading changes forced him to rebuild from the inside out, and why the turning point wasn’t stress r...

Menopause doesn’t pause at the office door. It shows up in sleep loss, hot flashes, brain fog, anxiety—and too often, in silence. We wanted to break that pattern. So we sat down with Dr. Joanne Armstrong, VP and Chief Medical Officer for Women’s Health and Genomics, and benefits leader Carmilla Tan to unpack how CVS Health scaled a menopause support strategy across retail stores, call centers, pha...

What happens when you outlive your ovaries? Dr. Kelly Casperson, board-certified urologist and award-winning author, joins us to unpack the truth about menopause and hormones in her characteristically honest, evidence-based approach. Kelly challenges the outdated narrative that hormones are dangerous, walking us through why the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study has been widely misinterpret...

Senator Lori Urso of Rhode Island takes us behind the scenes of America's first-ever workplace menopause legislation in this powerful conversation about leadership, advocacy, and breaking barriers. Drawing from her personal journey through menopause that nearly derailed her career, Senator Erso reveals how she transformed her struggles into groundbreaking policy change that's now serving...

Have you ever found yourself staring into the mirror wondering "Who am I now?" Michele Heffron, transformational life and divorce coach, joins us for a profound conversation about the identity shifts that occur during midlife transitions. Michele shares how menopause often becomes a catalyst for deeper questioning about relationships, purpose, and fulfillment. "We get to this certai...