Made For Motherhood

September is PMOS Awareness Month, and women deserve to know what research continues to uncover about the full impact of this condition.
A 2018 systematic review of 57 studies found that women with PCOS/PMOS:

- 2.79 times the odds of depression
- 2.75 times the odds of anxiety
- 78% higher odds of bipolar disorder
- 37% higher odds of OCD

A 2025 Swedish study of nearly 3 million women also found a 48% higher rate of premenstrual disorders among women with PCOS/PMOS.

Living with PMDD and symptoms associated with PMOS, including insulin resistance and hirsutism, etc., has taught me how valuable it is to understand my own hormone patterns. Mira has helped me track my ovulation and hormone trends for 2 years. It has helped me to keep PMDD in remission, bring concrete data into conversations with my doctor, and become more aware of how my cycle may affect my mental health.

While Mira does not diagnose or screen for PMOS or PMDD, the knowledge and data it provides can help us recognize our own patterns, ask better questions, and advocate for the care we need. For women who are struggling without understanding why, seeing those patterns can give context to symptoms that otherwise feel random and help them know what to bring to their healthcare provider.

Studies:
Brutocao et al., 2018 — doi:10.1007/s12020-018-1692-3
Opatowski et al., 2025 — doi:10.1155/da/8226088

How many women with pmdd have been told their iron was “normal” when these updated thresholds would now identify iron deficiency?

I’ve talked about the connections of iron and PMDD for years because addressing my low ferritin was a significant part of my own recovery and remission journey. My ferritin improved only modestly at first, but I noticed a huge difference in my symptoms.

Here are the new standards for identifying iron deficiency from the American Society of Hematology:

• Children 9 months–4 years: ferritin ≤20 ng/mL
• Adults, including menstruating and pregnant women: ferritin ≤30 ng/mL
• Higher-risk groups, including women with heavy menstrual bleeding: ferritin ≤50 ng/mL
• Adults with inflammation: ferritin

I refuse to believe that the answer to women suffering is to tell us our menstrual cycles are unnecessary and medicate them into silence.

The menstrual cycle is powerful. It is part of a constant conversation happening between the brain, the ovaries and the rest of the body. When a woman is raging, depressed, exhausted, in pain or suddenly doesn’t feel like herself at certain points in her cycle, she deserves to have that looked into, evaluated, investigated, rather than just immediately suppressed.

Yes, I agree, for some women with pmdd, suppressing ovulation may be the treatment that gives them their lives back. But it is not curative and shouldn’t be advertised as such.
However, it is a viable option for treatment and every woman has the right to consider it.

The primary issue is how often birth control/suppression of the menstrual cycle is offered before anyone has asked what else could be contributing to those symptoms or making them worse.

When we immediately suppress the cycle, I believe we are taking away a piece of the puzzle before anyone has even bothered to look at it or consider it. This is what happened to me.
I went years without having any practitioner bring up concerns about my metabolic or nutritional status. I was given birth control, SSRIs, etc. None of those things put PMDD in remission.

But what finally did was addressing the underlying contributing factors: chronic stress, metabolic issues, nutritional deficiencies, issues with progesterone and estrogen, etc.

Women deserve so much more than “periods optional.” We deserve to understand what our bodies are trying to tell us.

What if we’re focusing so much on what’s happening inside the mother that we’re overlooking what’s happening around her?

Could chronic environmental stress influence how a mother responds to her children? Her stress response? Her immune regulation? Even what’s happening in her brain?

Innately, we feel this and we know this on a deep level, but I don’t believe we fully account for this in our treatment of reproductive mental health conditions.

Maybe supporting maternal mental health also means taking a much harder look at the environments we’re asking mothers to function in.

Armbruster et al., 2026 | PMID: 42276820

Growing old is a gift not everyone is given. 🤍

Forty seven years ago today, my grandfather’s life was taken. He never got the chance to grow old. Several years ago, I almost didn’t either.

Today, I see every line differently.

The irony is that the people warning this case will reduce women to “raging hormones” are the very people reducing Lindsay Clancy’s entire case to raging hormones.

I believe Lindsay killed Cora, Dawson and Callan. I believe she should be held accountable, and I personally believe she should go to prison. But we should not ignore severe psychiatric dysfunction, reported medication reactions, fragmented treatment, inadequate medical evaluation and the systemic failures exposed throughout this trial.

If we are going to call ourselves pro-life, then we must actually be pro-life, before birth, after birth, through illness and through crisis. That means protecting innocent children while also ensuring that the mothers who bring life into this world receive comprehensive, competent care.

Understanding the factors that led to a crime does not excuse the crime. It may help prevent another innocent life from ever being lost. And that is what I believe it means to be truly pro-life.

When you’re already fighting a battle within yourself, that is enough. Say yes to what is required, say yes to what you genuinely want and let the rest be a no.

Protecting your capacity now may be what allows you to have more “hell yeses” later.

The ADA stated definitively that the medications Lindsay said destabilized her were “out of her system” by January 24.

But the jury is clearly still looking at the medication question. During deliberations, they asked to review the medication evidence, and the pill bottles were sent back for them to examine. We cannot assume what they are thinking, but medication is clearly part of what they are considering.

Even if the body has cleared most of a medication from the bloodstream, that does not necessarily mean every effect of taking it, reacting to it, stopping it, or switching medications has ended.

Reviews found that stopping psychiatric medications can sometimes cause withdrawal, returning or worsening symptoms, agitation, anxiety, and sleep disruption as drug levels fall. Bosch & colleagues found that estrogen may affect how the body processes medication, while Sundström’s research suggests that the brain may respond differently to medication across the menstrual cycle, even when the amount of medication in the body has not changed, only the cycle phase. 

Also, Lindsay began amitriptyline only eight days before January 24. Her doctor told her to increase the dose the day before, although it remains unclear whether she took that increased dose. How can we conclusively say either way whether these drugs had an effect on her state of mind or the actions of that day? 

I also do not think we fully understand how the hormonal changes of postpartum, weaning, and returning menstrual cycles may affect the way a woman processes and responds to medication, or what she experiences when stopping it.

There is no definitive proof that medication caused Lindsay’s mental state or what happened to Cora, Dawson, and Callan. But “out of her system” answers only one narrow question about whether the drug itself was likely still circulating. I truly don’t believe there is enough information to say that there were no potential effects on that day. 

It is clear that we still do not know enough and our very limited in our understanding. Women deserve research capable of answering these questions.

As a neurodivergent woman who suffered with PMDD, I spent way too many years being blindsided by my menstrual cycle and not understanding what was happening.

I tracked my cycle with different period apps, but I didn’t have the full scope of information. Then I started using Mira.

Mira has become one of the tools that has helped me keep my PMDD in remission. It’s an at-home hormone monitor that allows me to track my actual hormone patterns throughout my cycle—including estrogen (E3G), LH, progesterone (PdG), and FSH.

As a neurodivergent woman, having that data at my fingertips has been incredibly beneficial in how I approach my cycle and my PMDD remission journey. I can better understand when I’m ovulating, recognize my own hormone patterns, and use that information to be more intentional about how I support my brain and body throughout the month.

If you’re ready to start understanding your own hormone patterns, use code EMILY for 25% off Mira hormone kits. 🤍