Contemporary OB/GYN week in review: alcohol use, cardiac rehabilitation, and more

In a discussion with Contemporary OB/GYN, Jessica Golbus, MD, assistant professor at University of Michigan Health, highlighted findings from a recent American Heart Association (AHA) scientific statement addressing the gender gap in cardiac rehabiliation (CR) participation and proposing strategies to enhance engagement among women.

CR offers substantial benefits for both men and women, including reductions in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, improved quality of life, and overall better health outcomes. Despite these well-established advantages, women remain significantly underrepresented in CR participation and completion rates.

Golbus explained that the AHA statement focuses on identifying barriers to CR participation specific to women and evaluating evidence-based strategies to overcome them. These barriers occur at multiple levels: individual, interpersonal or societal, and programmatic or health-system.

Deborah Anderson, PhD, professor at Boston University, has emphasized the critical importance of contraception and the urgent need for renewed global commitment to its accessibility, education, and innovation.

In a discussion with Contemporary OB/GYN, she noted that contraception is increasingly under political and social scrutiny, often targeted alongside abortion, despite its proven benefits for women’s health, family well-being, and economic stability. Contraceptive access allows families to plan and space pregnancies, reduces maternal health risks, and helps prevent abortions by avoiding unintended pregnancies in the first place.

Currently, approximately 75% of women worldwide have access to modern contraception, yet 200 million women remain without it. Even among those with access, many experience unintended pregnancies because of inconsistent or incorrect use. Anderson highlighted that half of all pregnancies globally are unintended, and 97% of these result from contraceptive misuse or nonuse—a striking gap between availability and effective use.

Stephanie Willson, MD, of the IVI RMA Global Research Alliance and a 2025 graduate of the Jefferson-RMA Fellowship Program, discussed new data on the reproductive potential of non-mosaic segmental aneuploid embryos at ASRM 2025 Scientific Congress.

Her team’s double-blinded, multicenter non-selection study evaluated 176 single frozen embryo transfers to clarify how segmental aneuploid findings on preimplantation genetic testing should be interpreted in clinical practice. The results provide long-awaited prospective evidence on implantation, live birth rates, and the role of segmental aneuploid embryo transfer when no euploid embryos are available.

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The function of the autonomic nervous system is impacted by endometriosis, according to a recent study published in Hypertension.

A significant reduction in blood pressure response was reported in women with endometriosis exposed to exercise or submerging their hand in cold water vs those without endometriosis. According to investigators, this may have significant implications for diagnosing and managing endometriosis.

“Medical science understands very little about endometriosis, so in order to diagnose and treat the disease effectively, we need to grasp the full scope of the disease and what it is doing to women throughout their bodies,” said Auni Williams, postdoctoral fellow at Penn State.

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