Mary Beth Nierengarten, MA

An integral part of a treatment plan for managing sexual dysfunction in women is the use of hormonal and pharmaceutical agents, a variety of which are available.

A stepwise approach ensures that all the potential issues and needs affecting a women’s sexual dysfunction are addressed prior to initiating management strategies.

Female sexual dysfunction is not rare. In the United States, 44% of women are reported to experience some form of sexual dysfunction and 12% of these women report distress associated with dysfunction. Despite this high prevalence, many women never talk to their providers about their sexual difficulties or concerns and many providers fail to broach the topic with their patients.

For particular groups of women, reluctance to talk about sexual difficulties may be enhanced by perceived societal judgements and misconceptions.

Despite its prevalence and adverse effect on women’s quality of life, female sexual dysfunction is often not addressed for a myriad of reasons.

ACOG conference attendees who want a glimpse of current and trending issues in the specialty will want to attend the session “Cutting Edge Topics in Ob-Gyn." The session offers overviews by various academic societies in different subspecialties that highlight evolving and emerging evidence of interest to practicing clinicians.

Navigation of the complex landscape of genetic prenatal screening and testing and ways to improve communication with patients about often inherently uncertain findings are the focus of the ACOG session, “Pearls & Pitfalls: Genetic Screening/Testing.