The most-watched NOVA documentary ever made and a revolution in the understanding of human development, The Miracle of Life (abbreviated Life) employs the most current developments in endoscopic and microscopic technology to capture the intricacies of human development. Narrated by Anita Sangiolo and vividly illustrating the most minute and hard-to-reach parts and processes of living systems, this film truly flexes the muscles of the newest photographic technology of its time, with esteemed photographer Lennart Nilsson behind the camera. Aired in 1983, Life was the first documentary of its kind, clearly explaining, in under an hour, biological systems that many people had never seen before. The film was written and produced by Bebe Nixon and directed by Bo G. Erikson. What follows is a description of the film, along with a brief analysis of its impact.

Life Magazine's 1965 cover story "Drama of Life Before Birth" featured photographs of embryos and fetuses taken by Swedish photojournalist Lennart Nilsson to document the developmental stages of a human embryo. Included in this article was the first published image of a living fetus inside its mother's womb. Prior to this, embryos and fetuses were observed, studied, and photographed outside of women's bodies as non-living specimens. Laparoscopic photography and sophisticated technology contributed to the capturing of these images, which appeared to represent living embryos and fetuses in womb-like environments.

Menstrupedia published the comic book Menstrupedia Comic: The Friendly Guide to Periods for Girls, hereafter Menstrupedia Comic, in July 2014 in India. Aditi Gupta, the founder of Menstrupedia and a women’s health activist, wrote Menstrupedia Comic while studying at the National Institute of Design in Gujarat, India, in 2013. Gupta worked alongside her husband, graphic designer Tuhin Paul, who provided the illustrations for the book. According to Menstrupedia, misconceptions and taboo surrounding menstruation in India prompted Gupta to develop the book. Specifically, in Hindu culture, women and girls may feel embarrassed to discuss their menstrual cycles openly, because menstruation is a process that some people consider impure. Published in eleven different languages, Menstrupedia Comic has become an educational resource for girls around the world to learn about their menstrual cycles.

Prenatal exposure to alcohol (ethanol) results in a continuum of physical, neurological, behavioral, and learning defects collectively grouped under the heading fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is the most severe combination of these defects under this heading, and is characterized by pre- and postnatal growth deficiencies, facial abnormalities, and defects of the central nervous system (CNS). The developing brain is particularly vulnerable to the toxicity of ethanol, given the broad time frame of susceptibility from neurulation, when the neural tube is formed, all the way through to birth. The cerebellum is an area of the brain particularly vulnerable to prenatal ethanol exposure. Mechanisms proposed for this drastic reduction in brain cells include apoptosis, oxidative stress, and damage to the radial glia stem cell progenitor pool. Physical dexterity, coordination, and visuospatial processing are all affected by these stressors, and eyeblink classical conditioning tests have proven that ethanol-induced damage goes beyond motor coordination by permanently impacting learning and memory.

Prenatal exposure to alcohol (ethanol) results in a continuum of physical, neurological, behavioral, and learning defects collectively grouped under the heading Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) was first defined in 1973 as a condition characterized by pre- and postnatal growth deficiencies, facial abnormalities, and defects of the central nervous system. The pattern of facial defects that occur as a result of ethanol exposure during development primarily affects the midline of the face, altering morphology of the eyes, nose, and lips. Ethanol damage to cranial neural crest cells (CNCC) early in embryonic development is responsible for these minor midline abnormalities. Regulation of the gene sonic hedgehog (shh) during this period of development has been observed to rescue these ethanol-affected CNCC from fated cell death, an association that has not yet been examined as it applies to human cells.

In 1971, a group of researchers founded the Monash IVF Research Program with the mission to discover how in vitro fertilization, or IVF, techniques could become a treatment for infertility in both men and women. The program included researcher Carl Wood and colleagues John Leeton, Alex Lopata, Alan Trounson, and Ian Johnston at the Queen Victoria Medical Center and Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Since the program’s establishment in 1971, the Monash IVF Research Program has helped to develop and implement many IVF technologies still used in clinical practice as of 2020. Additionally, the program established some of the first successful IVF pregnancies and births. As of 2020, the Monash IVF Research Program is one of Australia’s leading fertility programs and has used their technologies to help provide IVF treatment to thousands of infertile men and women.

Established under the Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) Act of 2004, Assisted Human Reproduction Canada (AHRC), also known as the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada, was created in 2006 to oversee research related to reproductive technologies and to protect the reproductive rights and interests of Canadian citizens. AHRC serves as a regulatory body for the development and use of such research and technology while enforcing the guidelines and restrictions laid out by the AHR Act.

Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are a collection of different techniques designed to help those who are infertile achieve a successful pregnancy. The most popular technology currently in use is in vitro fertilization (IVF), but others include gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT), intrauterine insemination (IUI), and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Although not encompassed under the umbrella term of ART, there are also various hormonal medications that can induce ovulation such as clomiphene citrate that can either be used alone to help women conceive, or used in conjunction with the above techniques. Infertility is a problem that has affected people throughout history, but it was only in the last half of the twentieth century that medical research developed technologies to help those who are infertile become pregnant.

The 1981 Adolescent Family Life Act, or AFLA, is a US federal law that provides federal funding to public and nonprofit private organizations to counsel adolescents to abstain from sex until marriage. AFLA was included under the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981, which the US Congress signed into law that same year. Through the AFLA, the US Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, funded a variety of sex education programs for adolescents to address the social and economic ramifications associated with pregnancy and childbirth among unmarried adolescents. AFLA received several criticisms for directly emphasizing and funding abstinence-only education programs from religious organizations. However, when US citizen Chan Kendrick brought the case Bowen v. Kendrick before the Supreme Court in 1988, the Court upheld that AFLA was constitutional. Although numerous evaluations have shown minimal scientific evidence supporting abstinence-only education, as of 2020, the federal government still provides funding for such programs through AFLA.

James Marion Sims developed a treatment for vesico-vaginal fistulas in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1840s. Vesico-vaginal fistulas were a relatively common condition in which a woman's urine leaked into her vaginal cavity from her bladder, and many regarded the fistulas as untreatable during the early 1800s. After years of efforts to repair the fistulas with myriad tools, techniques, and procedures, Sims developed the speculum and a vaginal examination position later named for him. He also popularized the use of silver metal sutures to treat and cure women who had vesico-vaginal fistulas. Sims's surgical cure for vesico-vaginal fistulas eased both the social stigma and physical discomfort of many affected women. Though current treatments of vesico-vaginal fistulas have evolved since the nineteenth century, some of the basic principles utilized by Sims have been incorporated into present-day surgeries. In particular, Sims stressed the significance of continual bladder drainage after the operation.