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50 free Women's Health trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Women's health is a subject most people think they know until someone asks the average age of menopause, which cell is the largest in the human body, or why a heart attack in a woman can look nothing like the one in a textbook. This women's health trivia quiz covers the whole territory: the menstrual cycle, pregnancy and childbirth, contraception, breast and cervical cancer screening, hormones, bone health and the conditions like endometriosis and PCOS that affect hundreds of millions of women. There are also questions on the people and milestones behind modern women's medicine: Elizabeth Blackwell, Virginia Apgar and her napkin, Georgios Papanikolaou's smear test, the pill's approval in 1960, Louise Brown's birth in 1978 and the Women's Health Initiative. The set runs from easy questions for a health class or awareness-month event to expert ones for nurses, midwives and medical students. Every answer was checked against medical and encyclopaedic reference pages before publishing, and each question carries a citation you can follow.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the median length of the human menstrual cycle?
28 days
Normal cycles run anywhere from 21 to 35 days, and day one is counted as the first day of bleeding, not the last.
Q 02In the United States, what is the average age at which a woman has her final menstrual period?
51
The average is 46 in India and 47 in Turkey and Egypt, and smokers tend to reach it earlier.
Q 03Roughly how long after the start of the last menstrual period does childbirth typically occur?
40 weeks
That span is the gestational age, just over nine months, and it is divided into three trimesters of about three months each.
Q 04Which country produced the first human born through in vitro fertilisation, in 1978?
England
Louise Brown was born at Oldham General Hospital by planned caesarean; Robert Edwards received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the work.
Q 05In which year did the US FDA first approve a combined oral contraceptive pill?
1960
Enovid had already been sold for menstrual disorders before the contraceptive approval, and Margaret Sanger was instrumental in getting the pill developed.
Q 06Who was the first woman to earn a US medical degree, at Geneva Medical College in 1849?
Elizabeth Blackwell
The male students had voted to admit her as a joke. She went on to found the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister Emily in 1857.
Q 07Virginia Apgar's newborn scoring system was first developed in which year?
1952
She reportedly scribbled the five categories on a napkin when a resident asked what a newborn exam should cover: appearance, pulse, grimace, activity and respiration.
Q 08The Apgar score is given to a newborn at one minute after birth and again at what point?
At five minutes
The test measures breathing, skin colour, reflexes, motion and heart rate, each scored 0 to 2 for a maximum of 10.
Q 09The Pap smear used to screen for cervical cancer is named after a physician of which nationality?
Greek
Georgios Papanikolaou first reported in 1928 that cancer cells could be spotted in vaginal smears, but his method was not widely accepted until the 1940s.
Q 10Almost all cases of cervical cancer are linked to infection with which virus?
Human papillomavirus
Around 99% of cases are linked to it, though most people who catch the virus never develop cancer, and vaccination can prevent up to 90% of cases.
Q 11In which year did the first vaccine against the cervical-cancer virus become available?
2006
Gardasil was the quadrivalent original; Gardasil 9, approved in 2014, covers nine strains, and in 2022 the WHO endorsed a single-dose schedule for several HPV vaccines.
Q 12Endometriosis affects roughly what share of women of reproductive age worldwide?
10%
That works out to nearly 200 million women. The tissue most often grows on the ovaries, fallopian tubes or the lining of the pelvis.
Q 13Long known as PCOS, what is the most common hormonal disorder in reproductive-age women?
Polycystic ovary syndrome
A renaming to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome was proposed in the 2020s; it is one of the leading causes of infertility in women.
Q 21Roughly what proportion of women experience depression after childbirth?
10 to 20%
Onset is usually two weeks to a month after delivery, which distinguishes it from the short-lived 'baby blues' of the first days.
Q 22Where does the word 'placenta' come from?
The Latin for a type of flat cake
The name refers to the organ's round, flat shape; the stage between the baby's birth and its delivery is the third stage of labour.
Q 23The human uterus is usually described as being the shape of which fruit?
A pear
Outside pregnancy it is about 7.6 cm long, 4.5 cm broad and 3 cm thick, and the everyday word 'womb' comes from Germanic rather than Latin.
Q 14About 90% of ectopic pregnancies implant in which part of the body?
Fallopian tube
The tubes are named after the 16th-century Italian priest and anatomist Gabriele Falloppio and average 10 to 14 centimetres long.
Q 15Pre-eclampsia is characterised by new high blood pressure arising after which point in pregnancy?
20 weeks
Historically both hypertension and protein in the urine were required for the diagnosis; some modern definitions accept hypertension with organ damage instead.
Q 16Screening for gestational diabetes in normal-risk pregnancies is recommended during which window?
24 to 28 weeks
Untreated, it raises the baby's risk of macrosomia, low blood sugar after birth and jaundice.
Q 17Folic acid is taken in pregnancy mainly to reduce the risk of which group of birth abnormalities?
Neural tube defects
The group includes spina bifida and anencephaly. The recommended adult daily intake of folate in the US is 400 micrograms.
Q 18Which hormone drives uterine contractions in childbirth and also aids milk production and maternal bonding?
Oxytocin
It works by positive feedback: each contraction triggers the release of more of the hormone, which makes the contractions stronger and more frequent.
Q 19The 'practice' contractions of pregnancy are named after a physician of which nationality?
English
John Braxton Hicks studied the later stages of pregnancy in 1872 and noticed that many women felt contractions long before birth.
Q 20The first milk a mother produces in the days after delivery, rich in antibodies, is called what?
Colostrum
In cattle and sheep it is so important that calves denied it almost always die of bacterial infection; the Old English dialect word for it is beestings.
Q 24Which of these is one of the largest cells in the human body, typically visible without a microscope?
The ovum
When it fuses with a sperm at fertilisation it forms a diploid zygote, and the fused cell rapidly grows into a new organism.
Q 25Ovulation is triggered by a surge in which of these?
Luteinizing hormone
The surge is set off by positive feedback from rising estrogen, and some women feel the moment itself as Mittelschmerz, German for 'middle pain'.
Q 26Of the three major endogenous estrogens, which is the most potent and prevalent?
Estradiol
Estrone dominates after the reproductive years and estriol during pregnancy; estetrol is produced only by the fetal liver.
Q 27Where does the word 'menopause' come from?
Greek words for 'month' and 'pause'
It is a modern medical coinage: the ancient Greeks had no specific word for this stage of life and described menses as 'the monthlies'.
Q 28About what share of the skin's collagen is lost during the first five years after menopause?
30%
The same drop in estrogen also accelerates bone loss, which is why post-menopausal women face higher risks of osteoporosis and fractures.
Q 29Ovarian failure before which age is termed 'premature ovarian insufficiency'?
40
Menopause before 45 is called 'early menopause'; smoking tobacco is one factor that brings it on sooner.
Q 30Premarin, an estrogen product marketed from 1942, was originally extracted from what?
The urine of pregnant mares
Its name is a contraction of pregnant mares' urine. In 1975 studies showed unopposed estrogen raised endometrial cancer risk eightfold, which led to combined estrogen-progestogen therapy.