👋🏼 Hey ladies!

Welcome to Bodytalk, where we discuss the realities of women’s health, culture, and more. This is our space: To unpack the double standards, to confront the misinformation, and to open up about the things we’ve been told are “TMI”.

Last week, I asked all of you how you felt about spring resolutions in place of New Year’s resolutions — and the majority of you were all the way on board. There is something about this time of year that feels energizing and fresh. I could certainly see why sticking to a daily goal would feel less daunting and more doable right now.

Speaking of daily goals, I think I’ve found one I can commit to. I’m going to try and stop reaching for a Diet Coke most days. I don’t know if I’ll have to set a limit for myself or if it’ll only work if I go cold turkey…but I do know that there’s compelling evidence to break up with the daily diet soda habit, which I get into below.

Intrigued? Let’s chat 🗣️

Seven years ago, I walked away from a job that required me to be in the office four days a week when my twins were born. Everyone thought I was crazy…until a year-ish later, when the pandemic came and people saw how much their work/life balance improved when working from home. Suddenly, I wasn’t the only mom I knew who was swearing off onsite work.

Now, we’re being fed conflicted messages. We’re told we should “have more babies”, yet the things that made motherhood more doable — like remote work arrangements — are being taken away. 

But now, what we’ve all been feeling is laid out clearly in the data: You want more babies? Let us work remotely. 

Recent research indicates that fertility between 2023 and 2025, as well as future planned fertility, was higher among people who work from home at least one day a week, and even higher when both people in a couple work from home.

The phrasing of this may lead you to believe that it's your odds of getting pregnant each try that increase when you work from home (and perhaps it does — stress does play a role in fertility, after all). But I think we need to think deeper about this. Having work flexibility doesn’t just make the prospect of actually parenting easier, it also makes things like attending the never-ending appointments required for fertility testing and care more doable. That could certainly affect a person's ability to get pregnant faster, even if their fertility isn't necessarily "better". 

Beyond that, it's about getting people to actually want to try, though. Up until now, most research has pointed to things like contraception access, societal shifts, and the rising costs of childcare as reasons for the declining birth rate. And yes, all those things play a role.

But remote work opportunities also play a role here, as evidenced by the data. This isn’t one-size-fits-all, obviously, and the research doesn’t necessarily confirm that fertility and birth rates will skyrocket if people are given more workplace flexibility. It's not just about reproductive rates; it's also about reproductive choice. Read more.

🔎 Ask Clara: How do return-to-office mandates affect women?

Even in spaces that are meant to be safe and protective, female bodies are vulnerable — and a recent viral video is proof of this.

A male nurse has made major waves on the Internet after posting what was, presumably, meant to be a funny piece of social media content. Spoiler alert: It's not funny. At all. 

In the video, the nurse shows himself opening up a Foley catheter. The text onscreen reads “Inserting a Foley catheter on a Gen Z female patient” followed by a laughing emoji. It’s already wildly inappropriate.

Presumably, the nurse wasn’t actually in the room with a patient and was just acting out the process for the camera, which is already unprofessional. Why are we creating performance content around a medical event that can already feel incredibly uncomfortable and invasive? And why are we adding a laughing emoji and making this a joke?

But what takes this to the next level of inappropriateness is the song that plays in the video. The song is “wgft”(feel free to guess what that acronym stands for), and the lyrics used in the viral video are “spread that p*ssy wide let me go for a dive”. 

And this right here? This is why so many women only want to see female medical providers. Because not only have they experienced gaslighting and dismissal from male providers, there’s also a (completely valid) fear of being sexualized while in a vulnerable state. And listen, this is clearly not just in our heads, as evidenced by this video. Also worth noting: Patients treated by female physicians have better outcomes, which is well-documented. This isn't about discrimination; it's about doing what we need to do to feel safe. And we shouldn't have to think so hard about that, especially not in the context of healthcare. Read more.

 🔎 Ask Clara: Why do women feel unsafe in healthcare settings?

Listen, I love a crispy Diet Coke. When I hit that 3pm slump (side note: WTF is the deal with the 3pm slump and why does it just knock me off my feet every single day!?!?), it’s literally the only thing my body wants. Cracking open that can, pouring it over some ice, maybe adding a squeeze of lime if I’m feeling ~extra~. OMG, it’s just the best.

Girlhood is loving a daily DC. We can all agree with that, right? There’s just something life-giving and…maybe slightly addictive about it. 

Social media has arguably made it worse. I rarely log on to an app without seeing some type of Diet Coke content. Sometimes it’s a clip of another woman talking about how much she loves her soda…but sometimes it’s about how Diet Coke is going to kill us.

Some days, I see the latter and think “yeah, and you know what else is going to kill us? Life. So we might as well drink up and enjoy what we have”. Other times, I find myself really taking the risks associated with drinking diet soda seriously.

And those risks? They are, unfortunately, well-documented. There is, according to one research paper, “mounting evidence” that artificially sweetened beverages have been associated with a whole slew of health consequences, from dental issues to rheumatoid arthritis to accelerated cell aging, among others. In another study, daily diet soda consumption was linked to an increased risk of incident metabolic syndrome (which refers to a cluster of conditions, according to Mayo Clinic) and type 2 diabetes. Yet another links daily consumption of artificially sweetened drinks to increased dementia risk.

So...yeah. The risks do seem pretty real. Read more.

🔎 Ask Clara: Are artificial sweeteners bad for you?

Robyn — yes, the same Robyn who gave the world the gift of the absolute banger “Dancing on my Own”, among so many other great pop standards — had a child as a single woman in her 40s. 

That still feels like a bit of a revolutionary path, though based on statistics around the rise of women opting out of marriage, I suspect it won’t be that way for long.

Like many (but not all!) mothers, Robyn always envisioned doing parenthood with a partner. And when it didn’t shake out that way, when she realized she would have to make compromises she wasn’t willing to make in order to have children in a conventional heterosexual relationship, she opted to do it on her own…and she’s reflecting on the complicated feelings that came with that choice.

“I had seen myself having a kid in a stable relationship. I was sad to let go of that. It felt like a failure,” she told The Guardian.

But here’s what Robyn is truly doing by getting real about these complicated feelings: She’s normalizing this path. And she’s telling other women who want to be mothers, who fear their time is running out, yet don’t feel like they’ve found a partner with whom they want to build a family,  that they don’t have to wait.

Thanks to both improved fertility technologies and a greater scope of what is truly possible for women, you can choose single motherhood. Doing it on your own may feel like the uncommon choice, and society may act like it’s a “last resort”, but people like Robyn will change the narrative. Because it’s not a failure. And by sharing the things that led her to single motherhood by choice, she’s pointing out something important: It can be an intentional move. 

“I think motherhood in a conventional heterosexual relationship, in my life at least, has been really hard to reconcile with what I think I would have to do to make that work,” she shared. 

Choosing to do it on her own instead? It’s the farthest thing from a failure. It’s a powerful choice. Read more.

🔎 Ask Clara: Why are women opting out of marriage?

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