Today, India is celebrating 77 years of Independence. In the past 77 years, a lot has changed. We are no longer ruled by the British, we are the world’s largest democracy and women are being empowered. Recently, in September 2023, the House also passed the Women’s Reservation Bill.

However, things were not as simple as today. 77 years ago, a lot of things around women’s health were considered taboo. We interviewed three women from the same family to see how the conversation around women’s health has changed over time.

Shanti Bhattacharya, 81, a retired scientist at Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited shares that when she was growing up, women rarely discussed their health openly. “It was considered a private matter. However, discussions which were once considered taboo are being talked about among the younger generations. Now more women are aware and active about their health. They also have better access to health treatments than earlier times,” she says.

Shanti notes that the accessibility of birth control pills and improved cancer screenings and awareness around cancer are the biggest developments in women’s health now as compared to when she was growing up.

What Were The Taboo Topics?

Unsurprisingly, what was taboo 77 years back, is still taboo today. Whether it was the discourse around menstruation, menstrual health, menopause, pregnancy or anything around women’s health. However, with time, things have eased out a bit.

“With the rise of information through social media, the conversations are now pretty open,” says Anna, Shanti’s 17-year-old granddaughter. “I get most of my information from the internet, social media, and school. It is much easier to access information about women’s health now compared to the older generations. Thanks to the internet,” she comments.

Anna’s mother and Shanti’s daughter Ruchi, 45, earlier a teacher, now a homemaker says that not only conversations are now more open than her and her mother’s generation, but there is also a shift in the topics. “The focus is now on menopause, skin and hair problems, breast cancer, cervical cancer, cysts, thyroid, mental health and also in balancing family responsibilities and personal well-being,” she says.

However, she also recognises that while it is easier to talk about menopause now, there are still a lot of challenges in discussing women’s sexual and mental health.

Pregnancy, Planning, And Food Habits

The biggest change that both Shanti and Ruchi noticed was the discourse around pregnancy, especially on cesarean delivery. “In our times there were very few planned pregnancies. Cesarean or c-section deliveries were only to be done in emergency cases. Women were expected to accept whatever happens to them naturally,” Shanti expresses.

However, now, there are ways to map out your pregnancy and deliveries. Though it does not always go as planned, there are options to have your own birth plan. This is where you can choose what you want to include in your plan, where you want to induce labour, whether you was a vaginal delivery, etc.

Even what women ate also changed. The focus on nutrients and calculated diet is now more prevalent, all three point out. “In our times food was only home-cooked. There was no processed food. During pregnancy, the focus was on basic nourishment like milk, eggs, and vegetables. Women were also encouraged to read religious texts during their pregnancy for good thoughts,” Shanti mentions.

The Goods And The Bads

With the influx of information on social media, more are now aware of their bodies. Information is easily and quickly available. It has also helped Ruchi and Anna bond well. As, a lot of the time it is Anna who shares new information with her mother. Ruchi too appreciates this openness. Doctor’s visit too is now more accessible and Ruchi mentions it as another source where she gets health information. Ruchi also uses the internet for doctor’s consultations.

However, there is still a long way to go. Women are now working, managing their health, and shifts in hormones, but are also expected to manage the household chores without much support. “This leads to an increased stress,” laments Ruchi.

While Anna points out that with the rise of social media, “there is a pressure on young girls to look a certain way. There are unrealistic beauty standards. Girls are not eating food to look thin,” she said.

Pneumonia is one of the most common infections that was responsible for 14% of all deaths in children under the age of five, influencing the death of 740,180 children in 2019. It is a form of acute respiration infection that affects the lungs, making it difficult or painful to breathe. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention statistics explain that the number of visits to the emergency department due to pneumonia happens to be 1.4 million people in 2021.

The symptoms and effects of pneumonia can be mild like coughing, shortness of breath to fever, chest pains nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. However, since the infection can be severe, doctors must treat them with urgency. To help them identify severe cases quicker, a new study published in the Lancet May 2025, reveals new models that can help doctors distinguish severe cases from the moderate ones.

Can This Help Lower The Risk Of Pneumonia

The researchers made an interesting discovery about common cold symptoms. They found that if a child has a runny nose and feels stuffed up, they are actually less likely to have a more serious type of pneumonia. In fact, the chances are lower by quite a bit! On the other hand, the study also pointed out some warning signs that suggest a child might have severe pneumonia.

The research showed that some common cold symptoms, like a runny nose and congestion, actually means a child is less likely (by 41%) to have a more serious form of pneumonia. On the other hand, certain signs like stomach pain, difficulty breathing, a fast heartbeat, and low oxygen levels in the blood point to a higher chance of severe pneumonia in children.

The study pointed out that doctors haven't had a good way to know for sure which of these children are in danger of getting much sicker. This new research is trying to fix that problem by giving doctors better tools to quickly identify the kids who need the most help right away.

Symptoms That Identified Mild from Severe Pneumonia

The researchers analyzed 2,200 children between the age bracket of 3 months and 14 years of age. The symptoms that were associated with increased risk of moderate or severe pneumonia

• Children with stomach pain had a significantly higher chance (52%) of having moderate or severe pneumonia.
• Kids who wouldn't drink fluids also faced a greater likelihood (57%) of a more serious pneumonia case.
• If a child had already been given antibiotics before coming to the emergency room, their risk of moderate or severe pneumonia was notably higher (64%).
• Labored breathing made the risk of moderate or severe pneumonia almost three times (2.8 times) as high.
• A faster than normal heartbeat also indicated a considerably increased risk (64%) of more serious pneumonia.

Pneumonia's Impact on Children's Health

Pneumonia is not just a minor illness; it's actually one of the most common infections that affects children all across the globe. It's also a very frequent reason why children in the United States end up needing to be admitted to the hospital. This shows just how important it is for doctors and scientists to really understand pneumonia and find the best ways to diagnose it, treat it, and even predict how serious it might become for each child who gets it.

Researchers pointed out that said that while most kids who get pneumonia will thankfully have a milder form of the illness, there's a small group, about 5 out of every 100 children, who will become very sick and might develop serious health problems. It's absolutely crucial for doctors to be able to spot these children very early on. This way, they can start strong and fast treatments to stop their condition from getting worse and potentially causing long-term issues.

Impact of This Study On Pneumonia Care

Being able to tell how severe a child's pneumonia will be doesn't just help the very sick kids. It can also help the kids who are likely to have a milder illness. If doctors can confidently say that a child's pneumonia is not serious, they can avoid doing extra medical tests that might not be needed. They can also prevent the child from having to stay in the hospital if it's not really necessary, which can be a big relief for both the child and their family.

With the modern medicine, timely access to specialized care often makes the difference between life and death. For patients with heart failure, this reality has never been more true but a troubling new study indicates that roughly 40% of individuals with heart failure do not see a cardiologist even once per year despite strong evidence that even one yearly visit would greatly enhance survival.

Published in the European Heart Journal and delivered at the Heart Failure Congress 2025, the research led by Dr. Guillaume Baudry and Professor Nicolas Girerd from the Clinical Investigation Centre at Nancy University Hospital in France indicates that annual cardiology follow-ups are linked to a 24% lower risk of mortality. The results give rise to immediate questions regarding discrepancies in access to specialist care and how health systems everywhere can improve support for heart failure patients.

Heart failure ensues when the heart becomes incapable of circulating blood, usually a result of ailments like coronary artery disease, hypertension, or past heart attacks. Although irreversible in a majority of instances, heart failure can be treated for many decades with the proper medications, lifestyle modifications, and follow-up visits. Cardiologists have the key role in providing this expert care.

While the previous research took its data from a handful of middle-class medical centers, the new study, based on medical records of 655,919 heart failure patients in France, discovered that almost two in five patients saw no cardiologist whatsoever within a 12-month window. And such minimal contact has dire consequences. In accordance with the scientists, for every 11–16 patients who did visit a cardiologist on at least an annual basis, one life could be saved.

"Ever since we understood the importance of specialist care for cancer, we've also known that heart failure needs specialist attention," said Dr. Baudry. "Our study offers proof that even clinically stable patients can gain benefit from regular care by a cardiologist."

How Often Should You Visit a Cardiologist?

To maximize care delivery, the research stratified patients according to two straightforward but strongly predictive factors: recent hospitalization for heart failure and diuretic use (a common set of medications used to counteract fluid accumulation). These factors were used to determine which patients required more frequent follow-ups with specialists.

Patients with no recent hospitalization and no diuretic use were improved by at least one visit a year, cutting their risk of death from 13% to 6.7%.

Those who had not been recently hospitalized but were on diuretics required two to three visits yearly, reducing their risk from 21.3% to 11.9%.

Those hospitalized in the past five years (but not the recent year) also needed two to three visits to reduce risk from 24.8% to 12.9%.

The most at-risk group—those hospitalized in the previous year—benefited most from quarterly visits, lowering death rates from 34.3% to 18.2%.

Importantly, these recommendations are based on existing resource constraints within national healthcare systems, making them practical and scalable globally.

The study also identified significant differences in access to seeing a cardiologist. Women, older patients, and patients with other chronic conditions like diabetes or pulmonary disease were less likely to be referred for cardiology treatment. Indeed, 33.8% of women did not visit a cardiologist in a year, versus 27.9% of men. Women were also less likely to take drugs like RAS inhibitors, which are routine in heart failure treatment.

In spite of these differences, women actually fared better overall in mortality and hospitalization rates—an intriguing and not yet fully explained result that merits further study.

Professor Nicolas Girerd stressed the necessity of systematic reform: "Referral to a cardiologist should be as routine in heart failure as it is in cancer care. Our study demonstrates that two simple markers recent hospitalization and treatment with diuretics—can inform these decisions without the need for expensive diagnostic machinery."

This big, population-based French study is a wake-up call, not only for European healthcare, but for health systems in general. In most nations, primary care doctors are overworked, and patients with complicated diseases such as heart failure might not get the specialist care they require.

In a supporting editorial, Professor Lars Lund of Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm cautioned, "What good is 50 years of discovery and innovation in heart failure treatment if patients aren't accessing that care?" He further said that systemic initiatives are urgently required to include cardiology follow-up in the standard care pathways.

Although this was an observational study and cannot establish direct causality, the scale and robustness of the findings are a powerful argument for change. The researchers plan now to conduct an interventional clinical trial to examine the effect of organized cardiologist follow-up on patient outcomes. They also want to investigate the problem in countries with varying models of healthcare in order to determine world applicability.

Hidden Cost of Skipping Cardiology Visits

Heart failure doesn’t always arrive with drama — no sudden collapse, no flashing lights. Instead, it often unfolds quietly, with fatigue, shortness of breath, or swelling easily dismissed as aging or stress. But beneath that silence lies a ticking time bomb. The latest study from France highlights a shocking truth: failing to see a cardiologist even once a year could be a matter of life and death. This isn't about access to the latest technology or expensive tests, it's about presence.

The absence of a specialist in a patient’s journey with heart failure can mean the absence of life-saving medication adjustments, early warning signs going unnoticed, and critical therapy not being initiated. The data is sobering — skipping that one visit could mean doubling the risk of death.

Signs That Could Save Lives

One of the most powerful insights from the study is its identification of two simple, scalable criteria—recent hospitalization and diuretic use that can predict which heart failure patients are at highest risk. This is revolutionary in its simplicity. It doesn’t require advanced imaging, genomic testing, or expensive algorithms.

In a historic first for modern medicine, surgeons in the United States have successfully performed the world’s first bladder transplant in a living human. Announced on Sunday, the groundbreaking procedure was carried out by a joint team from Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) and UCLA Health at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

A Major Leap in Transplant Surgery

Leading this pioneering operation were Dr. Inderbir Gill, founding executive director of USC Urology, and Dr. Nima Nassiri, director of the UCLA Vascularized Composite Bladder Allograft Transplant Programme. The duo and their multidisciplinary team performed the complex surgery, marking a significant advancement in the treatment of patients with non-functional or severely damaged bladders.

“This surgery marks a historic moment in medicine and could revolutionize the treatment of patients with ‘terminal’ bladders that no longer function,” said Dr. Gill. “Transplantation is already lifesaving for many organs, and now the bladder can join that list.”

The Patient’s Journey

The recipient of the transplant was a man who had endured multiple serious health setbacks. More than five years ago, he underwent major cancer surgery that resulted in the loss of most of his bladder. Subsequently, both of his kidneys were removed due to renal cancer, leaving him dialysis-dependent for the past seven years.

“For carefully selected patients, this offers a promising new option,” Dr. Nassiri explained. “This first attempt at bladder transplantation was over four years in the making.”

How the Surgery Was Done

The innovative procedure involved transplanting both a kidney and a bladder from a deceased donor. Surgeons first implanted the kidney, followed by the bladder. In a final step, they connected the newly transplanted kidney to the new bladder to allow the system to function as a unit. The surgery lasted around eight hours.

The results were immediate and remarkable.

“The kidney started producing a large volume of urine right away, and the patient’s kidney function improved immediately,” said Dr. Nassiri. “There was no need for further dialysis, and the urine drained properly into the new bladder.”

What This Means for the Future

Bladder transplants have long been considered a distant possibility due to the organ’s complex structure and function. This successful case could pave the way for new treatment options for people with bladder failure, particularly those whose condition does not respond to conventional therapies.

Despite the complexity of the procedure, the patient is reportedly recovering well and showing positive signs of improvement. The success of this operation could lead to wider adoption in the future and clinical trials for selected patients.

“This is a big step forward,” said Dr. Gill. “We are hopeful that this opens a new chapter in organ transplantation and urological care.”