Show notes: Join Kate as she talks to Dr. Caroline Signore, Deputy Director of Extramural Research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health. We talk about Dr. Signore’s path to obstetric and gynecological research. And, we discuss PregSource, a very important program at the NIH designed to involve pregnant women in research understanding the normal experience of pregnancy. Too often we think whatever we are experiencing is normal when it isn’t, or is abnormal when everything is fine, and that’s because there is so little data on pregnant women at all.
PregSource currently has over 700 people enrolled. If you are pregnant you should consider signing up today! The NICHD is also releasing a Spanish-language version of PregSource in September.
Guest Bio:
Caroline Signore, M.D., M.P.H., is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and serves as the Deputy Director of the NICHD’s Division of Extramural Research (DER). As of January 1, 2019, she is also serving as acting chief of the Pregnancy and Perinatology Branch (PPB).
She joined NICHD in 2003, first in the Division of Epidemiology,
Statistics, and Prevention Research (now the Division of Intramural
Population Health Research), and then as a program official in the
PPB. She was appointed as Deputy Director of DER in 2013.
Dr. Signore completed her obstetrics and gynecology residency at the
University of Florida, and later received her master’s in public health
at The George Washington University. Dr. Signore is a fellow of the
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Dr. Caroline Signore of the NIH.
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Show notes: Join Kate as she talks to Dr. Annaliese Beery, professor and member of the Psychology, Biology, and Neuroscience programs at Smith College. I wanted to talk to Dr. Beery because of her work on sex, gender, and estrus cycles in animal research. People often avoid studying females because they believe we are all too variable because of the effects of the menstrual cycle on physiology and behavior. Dr. Beery tells us how that isn’t at all true! She also tells us about the research that shows that males are often the ones who are more variable.
It turns out that menstrual/estrus cycles don’t mean you are suddenly at the whim of your hormones any more than any other gender. So one of the main reasons for gender inequity in research – that when studying females you have to control for menstrual cycle phase, and that is just so hard – is rendered moot. I have been chewing on this interview for months, because it turns upside down so many ways that menstruators are taught to think about themselves. I loved this episode, and I hope you do too!
Guest Bio: Dr. Beery is a professor at Smith College, where she integrates ecological, evolutionary, and neuroscience perspectives in her work. One branch of her research is focused on the neurobiological mechanisms supporting life in social groups. She also studies sex bias in the use of female and male research subjects—both from literature based surveys of prior research, and through empirical studies of sources of variability in males and females. She is the recipient of grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and other organizations.
Dr. Annaliese Beery
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Want a better PERIOD?
Subscribe to PERIOD so you don’t miss an episode! Subscribing, especially on iTunes, helps us a ton with promoting the podcast and getting the word out to more people. So does leaving a review, so please do that too!
Call or write me! I am collecting two things right now: your period questions, and first period stories. Leave me a voicemail with either or both at 262-PERIOD-2 (262-737-4632). Don’t forget to tell me how to contact you if you don’t mind my following up.
Excerpt: Join Kate as she talks to grad student Holly Horan from her fieldwork in Puerto Rico on the effects of stress on pregnancy and preterm birth. Show notes can be found at kateclancy.com/period23. And don’t forget to use coupon code “periodpodcast” for 50% off your order at elleboxco.com!
Summary: I was lucky enough to meet Holly Horan a few years ago when I was out at Oregon State giving a talk. I then invited her advisor, Melissa Cheyney, and Holly, to be part of a symposium at last year’s American Association of Physical Anthropology. We got to talking after the symposium, and of course Holly quickly became another one of my podcast victims. I am excited to share our conversation with you all in today’s episode.
Holly Horan has a masters degree in medical anthropology and is a doctoral candidate in applied anthropology at Oregon State University. In her non-academic life, she is a birth and postpartum doula, this is a professional who provides non-clinical prenatal, labor, and postpartum support to pregnant individuals and their families. Holly is currently conducting her dissertation research in Puerto Rico, studying the relationship between perceived maternal stress and gestational age at delivery. She is involved in a variety of maternal and infant health research projects both in the states and in Puerto Rico, but is still very much in the “gestational phase” of her professional career. Most importantly, she is a mother to one of the best research assistants around, her two year old daughter, Naya Thoreau.
Holly’s work in Puerto Rico is motivated by the fact that Puerto Rico has a high rate of preterm births, as well as her lived experience as a member of a mixed race household, with a Puerto Rican mother who herself experienced several preterm births. Her work demonstrates the limits of understanding health disparities through simple genetic explanations – the idea that genetic differences explain variation in health – as well as access issues – the idea that health care access are the main reason for health disparities. Rather, psychosocial stress, the kind that comes from every day slights and discrimination, has been shown to play the biggest role in creating differences in the health between racial groups. So, is there “something in the water” that helps us understand variation in health? Yes, but it’s not as easy to measure as you might think.
Holly Horan, medical anthropologist.
Thanks to Ellebox for sponsoring season 2 of PERIOD. Use coupon code “periodpodcast” or this link to get 50% off your order.
Do you want to be a patron, or is there someone on your shopping list who would want to be? Check out my Patreon page for ways to support this podcast. Help me make beautiful things!
Want a better PERIOD?
Subscribe to PERIOD so you don’t miss an episode! Subscribing, especially on iTunes, helps us a ton with promoting the podcast and getting the word out to more people. So does leaving a review, so please do that too!
Call or write me! I am collecting two things right now: your period questions, and first period stories. Leave me a voicemail with either or both at 262-PERIOD-2 (262-737-4632). Don’t forget to tell me how to contact you if you don’t mind my following up.
