Emily Fritz & Megan Trotter | a&e editor & news editor

During her first-year residency program at Lancaster General Hospital, Marguerite Duane, director of the Center of Fertility Awareness Education and Research at Duquesne’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, learned about natrual ways to manage fertility health. She found herself asking, “How have I not learned this? I’m a doctor.”

Duane, a board-certified family physician, professor, researcher and expert in women’s health, held a presentation on Wednesday night in McGinley Hall to talk about the importance of understanding fertility and reproductive health. She shared the story of when she realized how poorly educated both women and men are on their bodies when it comes to fertility.

The importance of understanding reproductive health

Duane is the “co-founder and Executive Director of FACTS about Fertility, an organization dedicated to educating medical professionals and students about the scientific evidence supporting fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs),” according to Duquesne’s website.

FABMs include cycle tracking, keeping track of changes to cervical mucus and vaginal secretions as well as recording symptoms on a regular basis, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

As part of Duquesne’s Center for Fertility Awareness Education and Research, Duane studies Restorative Reproductive Medicine (RRM), which focuses on diagnosing and treating the root causes of reproductive health challenges, rather than merely masking symptoms with the goal of providing long-term sustainable solutions to conditions like infertility, hormone imbalances and menstrual irregularity.

“I have an M.D. after my name. I’m passionate about women’s health. Heck, I’m a woman,” Duane said. “The reality is there’s this perception that these methods are really only available or should be available to well educated, married white women and that’s wrong. Every woman has, it’s her birthright to know her body, to have body literacy.”

But Duane said that many women feel “gaslit” by their doctors and often visit the office with complaints but leave feeling unheard and without satisfactory answers. She said this is because most doctors recommend birth control as a treatment for a majority of women’s issues with cramps, infrequent periods and pain.

“Let me be very clear in almost all of these instances, birth control pills [and] IUDs do not treat these conditions. What you do is it suppresses your normal … hormones your body is producing, and it can help alleviate the symptom, but it does not treat the underlying cause,” she said. “It actually can prolong the time to the actual diagnosis and definitive treatment for conditions like endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome that are the leading causes of infertility.”

When Duane started her work with FACT in 2010, she said the infertility rate was 1-in-8, now she said it has gone up to 1iin-5. She said a big cause of this is that society tells women to wait to have kids and prioritize career and buying a home.

“Fertility does not start to decrease at 40, doesn’t start to decrease at 35 — it starts to decrease about 32,” she said.

Duquesne’s role in providing students resources about their bodies

Duquesne Health Services provides STI/STD testing for students. For students who need access to birth control for hormonal or period related issues Health Services will prescribe the medication but it does not administer or prescribe contraceptives like birth control or condoms for the purpose of safe sex.

A nurse at Health Services, told The Duke that students should refer to the Allegheny County Health Department for contraceptives.

President of Students Against Sexual Violence Aubrey Halbach belives there is nothing wrong with exploring your fertility health.

“There’s the narrative that like we’re a Catholic University, but in my opinion that really can only be taken so far before you’re neglecting the health and needs of your student body,” Halbach said. “Everybody should have the opportunity to explore the path that best suits them. And if the way the Health Center operates in terms of reproductive health concerns anybody, I will say: Me and my partners at SASV are more than happy to guide students to resources that can support them in whatever way they might need.”

Trump Administration’s policy on reproductive health

Since President Donald Trump stepped back into the White House yet again, he has signed hundreds of executive orders to overhaul former policies as part of Project 2025.

Last month, Trump signed an executive order to enact the Hyde Amendment and retract Executive Order 14076 and Executive Order 14079 from the Biden Administration in 2022.

“However, the previous administration disregarded this established, commonsense policy by embedding forced taxpayer funding of elective abortions in a wide variety of Federal programs. It is the policy of the United States, consistent with the Hyde Amendment, to end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion,” said the executive order, as listed on the White House website.

“I am hearing a lot of concerns about accessing necessary healthcare generally (due to revoking Biden’s executive orders 14076 and 14079). I think people are especially concerned about birth control and abortion access, and certainly generally I think with this new wave of executive orders, people have increased concerns about the criminalization of abortion services in the future,” said Anna Kreienberg, a professor of psychology of gender.

Duane told The Duke she is optimistic that the changes could lead to more funding for her work because it is natural reproductive healthcare and hopes that the Trump Administration will address concerns regarding hormones and dietary issues.

Period tracking and the Dobbs Decision (2022)

Following the Dobbs Decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade after nearly 50 years of precedent, many across the US worried that their period tracking apps would be weaponized against them.

In response, the American Privacy Rights Act was introduced in Congress. Now stalled by Democrats, the bill is unlikely to be voted on.

Many period tracking brands and their apps elected voluntarily to adjust their privacy policies, terms of use and encrypt sensitive data. Users were encouraged to store their data locally rather than hosting it on third-party software that could be subpoenaed.

“We may aggregate, anonymize or de-identify your personal data so that it cannot reasonably be used to identify you. We may share such data with third parties such as academic research institutions or use the data for statistical purposes,” popular period tracking app Flo said in response to user concerns.

Duane said that period tracking apps have increased women’s understanding of their cycles, but many of the apps don’t do a great job educating them on fertility.

“We also have to be careful and good stewards in protecting people’s privacy,” she said.