Anna Halpine, CEO of Fertility Education and Medical Management (FEMM), spoke at a March 4 conference on women’s health and fertility, sponsored by the Diocese of Charlotte’s new Office of Family Life and Catholic Health Professionals of Charlotte. (Mike FitzGerald | Catholic News Herald)CHARLOTTE — Charlotte-area health care professionals and others attended a talk on women’s health March 4, sponsored in part by the Diocese of Charlotte’s new Office of Family Life.
The program, hosted by St. Patrick Cathedral, featured guest speaker Anna Halpine, CEO of Fertility Education and Medical Management (FEMM). The FEMM program provides diagnostic testing and treatment for a range of hormonal disorders, allowing physicians to effectively treat a broad range of symptoms including menstrual pain, headache, anxiety, fatigue, infertility and more. It helps physicians identify the underlying issues behind these symptoms to help women achieve optimal reproductive health.
Halpine noted that hormonal imbalances are often treated with the birth control pill to reduce symptoms. She offered FEMM’s medical management approach as an alternative that goes beyond treating the symptoms and addresses the underlying conditions that cause hormonal imbalances. A FEMM-trained medical provider makes use of a woman’s ovulation chart and an in-depth hormone profile to diagnose the root cause of the symptoms and then develop a personalized treatment plan.
Halpine formed FEMM after attending a United Nations conference on population and development in which some of the attendees advocated abortion and contraception as solutions to women’s health challenges. Halpine organized a group of young pro-life attendees who countered such recommendations by promoting the dignity of the human person and Catholic teaching. The delegates from developing nations encouraged Halpine to maintain a permanent presence at future U.N. conferences and continue her work toward providing women’s education and health care that do not include abortion or contraception.
This spurred Halpine to form the World Youth Alliance to help advocate for women’s health programs aligned with Church teachings and the dignity of the human person. From that advocacy work, Halpine helped to develop FEMM, which gives health care providers the tools to diagnose and treat the underlying conditions that impact women’s health. FEMM medical management training is available to health care providers.
The event was co-sponsored by Catholic Health Professionals of Charlotte, which supports Catholic health care workers in promoting Church teaching in the fields of science and medicine and is open to Catholic health care workers in the diocese.
— Mike FitzGerald, Correspondent
Learn more
At www.femmhealth.org: Get more information about alternative approaches to treating hormonal imbalances and about Fertility Education and Medical Management
At www.facebook.com/CatholicHealthCharlotte: Get updates from Catholic Health Professionals of Charlotte and learn more about joining