Unproved medical claims, like tying autism to the use of Tylenol during pregnancy, set a dangerous precedent in pain management during pregnancy and in overall reproductive health care. “Toughing it out” isn’t an option when systemic inequities continue to contribute to higher rates of maternal mortality and morbidity for Black and Latina women who are “fighting like hell” just to survive.
This dangerous rhetoric not only undermines the science and role of medical providers in providing pregnant people with factual information to make informed decisions about their pregnancy, it also reinforces the long history of denying pain severity in Black and Latina women.
Vanessa Castro
In my own journey navigating reproductive health care, I have had many negative experiences during routine health screenings and procedures. And like many others, this has caused me to delay important screenings and care to avoid these literally painful interactions.
Many of the risk factors that fuel adverse reproductive and maternal health outcomes can be traced back to structural and individual racism within the health care system that sustains provider bias and can lead to coercive contraceptive experiences. This is further compounded by sweeping DOGE cuts that have eliminated women’s health research and programs intended to close the gap on health disparities that especially impact women of color.
“As a teenager, one of my first negative experiences happened while navigating an ovarian cyst the size of a softball.”
As a teenager, one of my first negative experiences happened while navigating an ovarian cyst the size of a softball, which required immediate surgery, essentially a C-section, to remove my ovary, on my first day of high school. My provider at the time insisted that my discomfort and very obvious bloating were because I was hiding a pregnancy, too afraid to tell my single, hardworking mother I had become, in the provider’s words, just “another statistic.”
Despite my pleas to the contrary, my annual physical to play soccer turned into a urine and blood test to prove that I was, in fact, not pregnant.
I felt powerless and small.
Years later, after enduring irregular and painful periods, I wanted to explore hormonal contraceptive options that might lessen this pain. After hearing the horror stories of the incredible amount of pain many of my friends endured while getting an IUD (once a tool used for population control in the eugenics movement, but now a tool in reproductive autonomy), the idea of more pain overshadowed my desire to achieve relief.
More recently, I experienced excruciating pain due to a ruptured ovarian cyst that sent me to the ER days after discussing with my provider my readiness to start a family. Despite my extreme discomfort and my request for stronger medication to manage the pain, a resident doctor insisted the pain should not be severe enough to require more medication and I should wait for my given medication to take effect.
I arrived at the hospital early in the morning and was not discharged until late in the afternoon, still tender and barely able to move. Later, when I shared this with my regular provider, I was validated about the pain I had experienced, even when I diminished the severity of the pain. I was still holding the pain of being dismissed and denied care, and that validation and moment of support was exactly what I needed when I sought care in the first place.
“Medical gaslighting and denying care, especially to Black and Latina women, is not new.”
Medical gaslighting and denying care, especially to Black and Latina women, is not new, and it is something many women face in their reproductive health journey when accessing contraceptives, seeking answers to undiagnosed debilitating pain or during postpartum pain management.
I recently learned it was not until May 15, 2025, that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its guidelines and recommendations on pain management for IUD insertion and other in-office procedures. This was shocking, as it means many providers have not been (and are likely still not) trained or medically practiced in addressing the pain their patients experience during this common procedure.
It also further highlights the need to address barriers that lead to negative reproductive health outcomes and for better diagnoses for conditions like endometriosis that remain severely underdiagnosed in Black and Latina women. A study found that in postpartum care, they also received lower doses of pain medication compared to white women.
The stark reality is we cannot continue to fail Black and Latina women by perpetuating these perceived incorrect notions that our pain tolerance is somehow superhuman — a racist ideology based on the harmful origins and historical practices in gynecological and obstetric care.
Discouraging women from seeking out pain management, like Tylenol, during pregnancy, offers another form of reproductive control over the decisions we make around our bodies and our ability to know what our needs are. We cannot allow medical misinformation to dehumanize us and normalize pain as a part of our reproductive health. We owe it to ourselves to continue fighting for reproductive justice that humanizes us all.
Vanessa A. Castro is a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice and the Every Page Foundation, working in the nonprofit sector to promote health equity and sexual health and well-being.
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