The Natural Womanhood Podcast

Have you ever blown up at your significant other, only to realize that your period is due to arrive any day? You might wonder if you can chalk up your extra irritability to being in your luteal phase, and the premenstrual syndrome (or PMS) that often accompanies it—and then you might wonder how much PMS is too much PMS. While we're at it, what exactly is PMS? What causes it, and is any part o...

Anyone who's practiced natural family planning (NFP) in their marriage for even a few months knows that it comes with its challenges—and that sometimes, the rose-colored lenses many of us start out with can get taken off pretty quickly.  In fact, for those in the early years of marriage navigating TTC (that's "trying to conceive," for the uninitiated), TTA (trying to avoid preg...

In our previous episode of The Natural Womanhood Podcast, we learned about the promise of photobiomodulation (aka "PBM," aka "red light therapy") for health and fertility from expert Tracy Donegan. It only made sense to follow an episode about how we should be utilizing our waking hours (i.e., sunlight) to promote good circadian rhythm, mitochondrial health, hormone synthesis,...

By now, many of us have seen the Instagram reel of the woman absolutely terrifying her kids by coming around the corner with a red light therapy mask on her face. If your reaction was also to jump and think something along the lines of "What the heck could that possibly be for?!", then this episode of The Natural Womanhood Podcast is for you.  As it turns out—and as we learned from inter...

We've all been there before: You laugh a little too hard, and you pee yourself. A hard run leaves you damp in more areas than your armpits. The lingering cough from the cold you had last week has you dribbling. Or maybe you went to a trampoline park with your kids, only to find yourself peeing a little with every jump. That's all normal, right? Wrong . While all the above scenarios are i...

Some pregnant women run marathons, and some barely have the energy to get off the couch.  Some women can hardly wait to return to their normal physical activities after having a baby, and others like to take their time getting back into the swing of things. Who's got it right? How much should we be exercising while pregnant? Are there any kinds of exercise pregnant women absolutely shouldn&ap...

The "hot girls have stomach problems" social media trope is grimly funny, probably because so many of us can relate to the phenomenon of "oh, I can't eat that , or I'll be in the bathroom the rest of the night," (and even if you're lucky enough to not be personally familiar with that feeling, you've undoubtedly heard similar sentiments from your sisters or g...

How on earth does a clinic surrounded by universities—and with a large student patient population—win the "best women's health clinic" award from the Seattle Times ... without ever prescribing birth control? Helen Nguyen, CEO of 3W Medical for Women, thought it sounded too good to be true when she was told 3W had won the "Best Women's Clinic in the Pacific Northwest"...

Back in Season 2, we asked the question " Can Catholics use NFP? " to tackle some of the perceived controversies that surround the use of fertility awareness methods (FAMs) when used for family planning (often referred to in this context as "natural family planning" — hence, "NFP"). Because Natural Womanhood is dedicated to the belief that fertility awareness is for e...

Functional medicine-trained nurse and nutritionist Ginny Noce (aka " The Women's Health RN ," as she's known to her thousands of Instagram followers) wants you to know that using the nonstick cookware at your AirBnB during your long weekend away isn't going to make or break your fertility health. She also wants you to know that "calories in, calories out" is abso...

"There is no informed consent without body literacy," says Katie Vidmar, Natural Womanhood's Director of Programs, in this fascinating episode of The Natural Womanhood Podcast. "If you don't know how your body works in a state of health, you can't wrap your mind around what's at stake with any given healthcare decision." In this episode, Katie sits down with...

By historical standards, the dating landscape for Millenials and GenZ is... strange, to say the least. The ubiquity of dating apps, social media, and smart phones has changed the game not only for romantic relationships, but for friendships as well. And friendship, says Jason Evert, is the critical foundation for forming a lasting, loving, intimate relationship with another person: "You can h...

For far too many women, one endometriosis surgery leads to another... and another... and another. But according to Dr. Patrick Yeung, MD, "one and done" endo surgery is not only possible, but it should be the goal that every gynecological surgeon has for his or her endometriosis patients. In this episode of The Natural Womanhood Podcast, NW's Editor-in-Chief, Grace Emily Stark, inte...

Regular listeners of The Natural Womanhood Podcast are likely familiar with the Creighton Method / NaPro Technology and FEMM for both fertility awareness charting and their surgical/medical protocols for treating reproductive health issues, including infertility. But few have heard of the third "flavor" of restorative reproductive medicine (that is, the holistic, root-cause approach to t...

While Natural Family Planning (aka NFP) is 100% worth it, it can be hard. No one will deny that (at least, not anymore). But too many couples who start off excited about NFP often find themselves alone and in the dark when challenges arise, and many end up giving up on it as a result. It's clear that more support is needed, but where, and how? Enter Natural Marriage Groups. In today's ep...

When Erin Dewey first started at Texas A&M University, she never imagined that she'd be fondly known across campus as "the period girl" by the time she graduated. But that's the reputation she garnered from leading the very first Cycle Mindfulness Club —Natural Womanhood's peer-led university campus initiative designed to create a supportive community for young women t...

We ask kids all the time "what do you want to be when you grow up?" but how often do we ask them "do you want to be a mom?" or "do you want to be a dad?" These questions are the very basics of the concept known as reproductive life planning, a topic we unpack in detail during this enlightening episode of The Natural Womanhood Podcast featuring Dr. Danielle Miller, MD....

In May 2024, Melinda Gates pledged $1 billion dollars to defend “reproductive rights” in America. But back in 2012, she was throwing around even bigger sums and broader goals: she publicly pledged to dedicate $5 billion to fund a massive pro-contraception campaign in 69 of the poorest countries in the world, most of which, at the time, were in Sub-Saharan Africa. From her apartment in the UK, a yo...

As more women awaken to the reality that birth control has been used as a bandaid for so many of their health issues, the search for root-causes and authentic solutions has led many to consider alternatives to allopathic medical care, such as naturopathic medicine. But how does naturopathic medicine differ, especially for women's health? In today's episode of The Natural Womanhood Podcas...

An estimated 44% of girls don't know what's happening when they start their first period . And when it happens, many of those girls are fearful that they are sick—even dying—and suffer in silence, too embarrassed to admit what's happening or ask any questions about it. Fear, confusion, lies: This is the sad reality of puberty for far too many young American girls today. But it doesn...

For years, Jennifer Lahl has been one of the lone voices screaming into the void about the ethical dangers of assisted reproductive technology (ART), including egg and sperm donation, and surrogacy. She specializes in sharing the stories of those people the billion dollar ART industry likes to hide, like those of the children conceived by anonymous donor gametes longing to know their genetic paren...

"What started as an ambitious crowdfunding campaign back in 2014 has since grown into the world’s first wearable [basal body temperature] sensor, advancing women’s reproductive health throughout every stage." So reads TempDrop's "About Us" page. As it happens, Natural Womanhood's website also began 10 years ago, in 2014, and so it only feels right that we'd have...

Abigail Anthony knew a thing or two about pain and perseverance as a former competitive ballerina. But when her increasingly painful periods and other seemingly disparate side effects made her workload at Princeton harder and harder to manage, people treated her as if she just needed to mentally "toughen up." Now a graduate student at Oxford (and the current Collegiate Network Fellow at...

Talking about intimacy can be tough, which can make communicating about natural family planning (NFP) with our spouse—or sharing about NFP and its benefits with others—a little bit... uncomfortable . How can we communicate better about sex, intimacy, and natural family planning to benefit not only our own marriages, but others', as well? In this intimacy-focused, third episode of season 3 of...

One miscarriage is painful enough, but imagine suffering two in a row, only to be told that you "got unlucky twice," and that it's still "too early" to look into any potential underlying causes. Maybe you don't have to imagine; maybe this is your reality, as it is for so many women suffering the heartbreak of repeated miscarriage. In this miscarriage-focused, second e...