Obstetrics & Gynecology

News and Events

Programs and providers of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine are often the focus of news stories and features appearing in major national media. We invite you to review some stories that typify the breakthrough accomplishments of our remarkable team and highlight the impact our care has had on patient’s lives.

Modern Medicine Can Do a Better Job Addressing Maternal Mental Health Disorders

black and white image of woman pushing a baby carriage, with her hand to her brow

Pregnancy and new motherhood transform a woman’s body as well as her life. While this is often a joyous time, it can sometime lead to mental health disorders, most often anxiety and depression. These conditions can be detrimental to the mother’s health and that of her child, but despite the high stakes, modern medicine often fails to address them. By teasing out the biological mechanisms underlying these pregnancy-related disorders, investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine are laying the groundwork for new ways to detect and treat women at risk. 

The statistics for depression that occurs after delivery, or postpartum, reflect a particularly abysmal reality: Clinicians successfully treat only about three percent of women with this disorder. For those who become depressed before giving birth, that number rises only slightly, to around five percent. 

Dr. Lauren Osborne

Dr. Lauren Osborne

Prenatal Testing Offers a Window for Finding a Mother’s Cancer Risk

hand with stethoscope on pregnant woman's abdomen

Harmful variants in the BRCA1 gene greatly increase a person’s lifetime risk of developing breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers, but most people are unaware they are carriers. In a new study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC)  and NewYork-Presbyterian explored the possibility of including BRCA1 testing at the time of obstetrical prenatal carrier screening. The researchers found that such an approach is not only cost-effective, it also can identify at-risk people at a time when cancer screening and other preventative strategies could save their lives.

Breast Cancer Precision Care: A Family Affair

A woman smiling

Video of Breast Cancer Precision Care: A Family Affair | Weill Cornell Medicine

When Nila Charles was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was the mother of two young children, working long hours and caring for a family member who was also diagnosed with cancer.

"It was a tough time, but I rallied through it," Charles recalled. "My care team at Weill Cornell Medicine was incredible and helped me so much."

Charles discovered her diagnosis during a routine mammogram and learned that she was BRCA2-positive through a genetic testing program co-led by Dr. Melissa Frey, co-director of the genetics and personalized cancer prevention program in the Meyer Cancer Center and an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine.

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