“We can take our health into our own hands,” the Oscar winner says. “Our comfort matters.”
Halle Berry on redefining women’s health and advocacy
Halle Berry joins USA TODAY to share why women’s health advocacy is her powerful next chapter.
Halle Berry is an investor in Nella, a company that created a new, more comfortable speculum for pelvic exams.The NellaSpec is smaller than traditional speculums and is sold directly to consumers for about $50 to $80.Berry became an advocate for women’s health after her perimenopause symptoms were misdiagnosed.
NEW YORK — Halle Berry, global superstar, Emmy, Golden Globe, and Oscar winner would like to talk about…your vagina. Or more specifically how to keep it healthy.
“My favorite subject by the way,” she laughs.
The actress started advocating for menopause and mid-life care in 2024 − after her doctor misdiagnosed her symptoms as herpes − and pushed for legislation to fund research and education in women’s health. That same year she became an investor in Nella, a company that has designed NellaSpec, a new speculum for pelvic exams and Pap smears.
Experts recommend that women have an annual gynecology visit, which often includes a pelvic exam, and a Pap smear once every three years, depending on age and risk factors.
“It’s very important that we do these yearly checkups. But so many women are anxious about going because of all the pain and the fear, they sometimes opt out,” Berry says. “I know when I was younger, I would opt out. Sometimes I would go two or three years without going because I just didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to face it.”
Traditional speculums are metal or plastic and come in multiple sizes, and can be cold, noisy (clanging or clicking) and off-putting. “Going to our first gynecological visit can be torturous − I know mine was. It’s very intimate, it’s personal. My daughter just turned 18, so she’s about to have her first visit,” she says of her daughter, Nahla Aubrey. “We put our legs up in the stirrups and then you got this big metal cold speculum jammed inside and it’s very uncomfortable.”
The exam for women in menopause can also be painful. “When you lose your estrogen, it’s painful down there. Sex is painful,” Berry says. “So imagine how painful it is going into the doctor’s office and having a speculum − it feels like it’s opening you up as big as a Buick. That’s what it feels like in your mind.”
NellaSpec, a one-time-use plastic device, is smaller than traditional speculums. It’s slimmer than a tampon, and instead of a two-prong “duck-bill” opening method, has a four-prong system, more like a tulip opening. Because the device pushes back vaginal tissue in four directions, it can be smaller and more comfortable, founder Fahti Khosrowshahi says.
It’s also sold directly to consumers, via the company website or at Walmart, in four different kits tailored for first-time exams, menopause and different body types. The kits, which include a wipe, aromatherapy and comfortable socks are not covered by insurance and cost $50 to $80.
“We can take our health into our own hands,” Berry says. “Our comfort matters.”
Women’s healthcare lacks innovation
The upgrade, Berry says, is overdue: “That thing hasn’t been reimagined for a very long time.”
Speculums have a checkered history. Though they date back to Roman times, one of the modern innovators of the device tested it on enslaved women without anesthesia. In Britain, women who were suspected to be sex workers were forced to have speculum exams.
But the device has also been lifesaving to help doctors detect cervical cancer in countless women.
“Anything that makes GYN exams easier, less painful, less scary is a good thing, full stop. So many women are afraid to go to a gynecologist because the experiences they’ve had have been bad,” says Kate O’Connell White, M.D, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University Chobanian & Avesdisian School of Medicine. “That said, my heart is breaking for the need for this innovation in this space, because what it really tells me is that many women have had the experience of a gynecologist or a nurse practitioner not taking their time with an exam and not giving people the care that they need around these exams.”
White points out there are several ways to make an exam with a speculum more comfortable. “I will always use the smallest size that I can. I will always use a lot of lubricant. And I will always go very slowly, which I tell patients are the three keys to a good pelvic exam,” she says. “And the vast majority of patients I take care of tolerate it just fine, and in fact, more than tolerate it, say it wasn’t nearly as bad as they thought it was going to be.” Many doctors will warm a speculum with water, or use tables with a built-in heating drawer for specula.
There’s also the cost. “The price point of these speculums means that they are marketing this towards a very narrow group of people who can afford this. Now granted, this is not a monthly need, like birth control pills,” White says. “But it’s still really expensive for something that you should not have to buy anyway. So there’s a real equity problem with this.”
She does see the appeal of the device for women getting a first-time exam, those in menopause, women who are no longer sexually active or who have partners without a penis, and women who are overweight.
“Patients who are obese often get horrible GYN care across the country,” White says. “Women of size have a really, really hard time at the gynos office, partly because not all places have larger size speculums, and larger size speculums are more uncomfortable. If this can help them, that like, that’s a serious game changer for those women.”
Will doctors be open to a bring-your-own-speculum approach? “As long as I am sure that I can use it correctly and without causing you more pain, then I’m happy to do it. Because you never usually want to start using any piece of equipment on an actual human before you tried it on a model,” White says. “So as long as it is as simple to use as it seems to be, and if I’m able to open and close it and feel comfortable with it before I put it into someone, I’d be happy to use it.”
But, she cautions, “If doctors can’t get it within 10 seconds, they may not want to use it. Because they’re never going to want to put something in and then have a problem with it once it’s inside of you. That’s even the worse.”
Doctors’ offices are also trying to move away from single-use plastic, White adds. NellaSpec also offers a reusable option for clinical settings that is now in hospitals including the Cleveland Clinic, UC Systems, Kaiser, and Columbia, and the cost is part of the exam, according to the company.
But there’s one part of an exam that the NellaSpec can’t replace: the Pap itself. “That’s when people hiss in and say, ‘What’s hurting?’ That’s the scraping of the Pap.”
Next-gen health care
There has been a surge in the decentralization of healthcare, with an increase in home-use and patient-owned devices and tests. NellaSpec is likely the first of many innovations on the horizon.
Despite her concerns about NellaSpec, White acknowledges, “there’s no price on health. There’s no price on detecting cervical cancer early, or pre-cancer before it becomes cancer. Ask a cancer patient, is there any amount of money that you wouldn’t really pay to avoid where you are right now?”
Berry sees an opportunity for the next generation.
“What I love about Nella is that my daughter will see a different day,” she says. “It’s been so wonderful to talk with her openly about it. She sees what I’ve gone through. She’s seen the work that I’ve done. She’s seen me go from an angry, mad, frustrated, perimenopausal woman with no idea what was happening to my body, to a woman now who is confident, strong, understands everything that’s happening to my body and can talk about it ad nauseum so that I can explain it to her. So she has zero fear of entering this time of her life.”