The belly button marks the exact spot where your umbilical cord was once attached—the vital connection that provided oxygen and nutrients in the womb. Once you started breathing, eating, and discharging waste on your own, this cord was no longer needed. What remains is a mark, a reminder of your months in your mother’s womb. However, it often gets ignored as you grow up. And there is nothing wrong with that. Your belly button does not require a special skincare routine, but neglecting its hygiene can lead to a buildup of bacteria, potentially causing a smelly discharge.

But generally, a discharge from your belly button is normal and colourless. According to experts, normal discharge is typically clear or light-coloured, has a slight odor (similar to sweat), and has no pain or redness around the navel.

What happens when you get a Bacterial or yeast infection in the belly button?

Experts say that the most common funk you might encounter in your belly button is a bacterial or fungal infection. A study titled

A Jungle in There: Bacteria in Belly Buttons are Highly Diverse, but Predictable published in 2012 in PLOS One Journal states that once rarefied to four hundred reads per sample, bacterial communities from belly buttons proved to be at least as diverse as communities known from other skin studies (on average 67 bacterial phylotypes per belly button).

This occurs due to poor hygiene, excessive sweating, or trapped moisture. Other conditions include navel piercings, cysts, and skin conditions like eczema or psoriasis. People with diabetes are particularly susceptible to fungal infections such as candidiasis if their blood sugar isn't under control, according to a 2019 review in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.

Bacteria and fungi love the dark environment of your belly button. If your belly button is infected, you might notice some redness or swelling. The discharge might look like pus, making your belly button smell bad. If it's a yeast infection, your belly button might also itch.

What happens when your navel piercing gets wrong?

Belly button or naval piercing, if infected, can lead to severe pain, discolouration, swelling, discharge and pus. It can also cause the skin to appear red, causing delayed or failed healing.

Other common signs include:

Chills or fever

Persistent pain or inflammation

Sensitivity or discomfort when moving

Swelling or tenderness to touch

When Should You See A Doctor?

Flo Health, a popular women's health app, has developed new digital tools which could shorten the time for endometriosis diagnosis by more than four years and reduce costs by thousands of dollars per patient across the US.

As of now, endometriosis affects an estimated 190 million of reproductive-age women worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. There is no cure for the chronic condition and access to early diagnosis and effective treatment can take years. Currently, the average time for a diagnosis is between four to 12 years.

However, a new npj Digital Medicine study suggests that Flo Health's Symptom Checker, specifically for endometriosis, alongside standard care could reduce the average time to diagnosis from 7 years to approximately 3 years with about 70 percent accuracy.

The research also found that using the checker allowed women to save $5,196 USD over a 40 year timespan, resulting from reduced medical costs and less productivity loss.

Anna Klepchukova, Chief Medical Officer at Flo Health, emphasized that the goal of such technology is to bridge the gap between symptom onset and clinical intervention.

“Endometriosis can deeply disrupt women’s lives, yet many spend years searching for answers within a system that hasn’t always been designed to connect the patterns they experience over time.

"This research explores how digital tools may help women better recognize their symptoms and bring clearer insights into conversations with their health care providers. While these tools aren't diagnostic, they support earlier awareness and more informed decisions, ultimately changing the trajectory of their care and their lives," she said.

What Is Endometriosis?

Endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside the uterus, causing pain and other symptoms. According to Dr Anuradha Kapur, Principal Director (Obstetrics & Gynecology) & Head of Unit at Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, symptoms can vary widely: “Many experience painful periods, pain during intercourse, bloating, and fatigue.

Others may have irregular bleeding, pain during bowel movements, and even asymptomatic cases,” she notes. Endometriosis is complex and can be difficult to diagnose, especially in asymptomatic cases or when symptoms overlap with other conditions like PCOS.

How Endometriosis Affects Life

Endometriosis can disrupt daily routines, impacting work and relationships due to fatigue and persistent pain. Dr Sonam Simpatwar, a reproductive medicine specialist at Central Railway Hospital, Byculla, Mumbai, highlights the importance of staying alert to symptoms, especially for those with risk factors like family history or high estrogen levels.

“Symptoms can be subtle, and many women may not experience severe signs until they face issues like infertility,” she noted.

For some, managing endometriosis involves lifestyle changes, pain management, and treatments ranging from hormonal therapies to surgical options. Regular gynaecological check-ups are crucial for catching signs early and avoiding long-term complications.

The PCOS and Endometriosis Connection

PCOS, or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, is often confused with endometriosis due to some overlapping symptoms like irregular menstrual periods.

However, as Dr. Kapur explains, “PCOS doesn’t cause endometriosis. They are distinct conditions with different causes—PCOS results from hormonal imbalances, while endometriosis involves abnormal tissue growth outside the uterus.”

Although they don’t directly cause one another, patients with both conditions face unique challenges, including a higher risk of infertility, irregular cycles, and persistent pain.

Managing PCOS can be equally challenging, particularly because it’s closely tied to insulin resistance and weight. Lifestyle changes, such as a balanced diet and regular exercise, are often recommended, but these suggestions can sometimes become oversimplified, leaving patients feeling body-shamed or unsupported.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Health, Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, and Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok have become the new Google, where people can easily diagnose their symptoms. More than men, the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots have emerged as a go-to place for women who try to self-diagnose their unique conditions and save themselves from stigma and being shamed.

A November 2025 study, published in the journal BMC Public Health, showed how AI chatbots are working as ‘pocket doctors’ to offer intimate health support for young women in resource-limited settings or conservative societies.

The study showed that large language models, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, have emerged as digital tools offering anonymity, reducing embarrassment, and increasing accessibility to health advice on menstrual problems and polycystic ovary syndrome, as well as physical fitness and mental health, in countries or areas where women’s health issues are heavily stigmatized.

OpenAI recently said that over 230 million people globally ask health and wellness-related questions on ChatGPT every week.

With the AI chatbots vouching for their ability in diagnosing diseases, often performing on par with or even outperforming human physicians in specific, simulated scenarios, how helpful or risky can AI health diagnoses be, specifically for women? Let’s take a look.

In a recent case, an AIIMS doctor flagged the risks of using ChatGPT for health after a patient suffered bleeding after he self-diagnosed his backpain using ChatGPT and took non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

“All ailments are diagnosed by exclusion, and we advise medicines according to the investigation. Do not use AI for self-diagnosis or self-treatment,” said Dr. Uma Kumar, head of the AIIMS's Rheumatology department, while speaking to news agency ANI.

At the same time, there have been several cases that made headlines when AI chatbots could diagnose conditions that, for years, went undetected by human doctors.

Marly Garnreiter, a 27-year-old Parisian strategist, initially shrugged off her night sweats, prickly skin, and weight loss as manifestations of sorrow for her dead father -- until ChatGPT intimated blood cancer in 2024.

Doubtful, she dismissed the AI's recommendation. A biopsy, a year later, concluded that she had Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of blood cancer.

Dr. Rajeev Jayadevan, Ex-President of IMA Cochin and Convener of the Research Cell, Kerala, told HealthandMe that unlike search engines of the past that were essentially glorified libraries that would fetch individual files or documents based on our keyword search, AI can search through numerous sources simultaneously and arrive at conclusions that are better customized to the situation.

That being said, an important limitation applies here. The machine algorithm can only deliver what we ask for. Thus, it may depend on the query being fed to the bot.

“Asking the machine, 'I have a headache, what should I do?' is different from saying: 'I am a 28-year-old woman taking birth control pills. I am under stress from my desk job at a bank and haven’t slept well for five days. I drink too much coffee, my meal timings are irregular, and I’m having a headache. What should I do?' The answer in both of these situations will be different. Therefore, people seeking AI help to evaluate their symptoms must make an attempt to give a more complete picture and use the correct prompts,” Dr. Jayadevan said.

How AI Can Be Risky For Women's Health

While it may be unfair to ask anyone not to use an AI chatbot for health questions, it is important to understand the limitations.

The major limitations include:

• Algorithmic bias: The AI models are largely trained on datasets that insufficiently represent women. Even the medical research has traditionally used the male body as a model system, thus AI trained on this data may fail to recognize how conditions like heart disease manifest differently in women, leading to underdiagnosis or misdiagnosis.

“The current AI algorithms are trained on data that predominantly applies to males, and the information we retrieve could be biased in that direction. For instance, the symptoms of ischemic heart disease for men and women are different, as are the causes of abdominal pain,” Dr. Jayadevan said.

• False positives: While AI can sometimes decode health issues that went undetected for years, there have also been instances where AI misinterpreted completely normal, benign, or non-target images as suspicious, leading to unnecessary follow-up tests and patient anxiety.

Dr. Jayadevan called it "AI hallucinations,” which involves the equivalent of lying or making false information in response to a query.

In 2025, David Alvaro, Editor in Chief, wrote in his Pharma's Almanac that AI tools used in precision medicine for dosing recommendations were found to produce less accurate results for women due to their reliance on pharmacokinetic data primarily derived from male participants.

A 2022 study by University College London revealed that AI models designed to predict liver disease from blood tests were twice as likely to miss the disease in women compared to men.

The AI models missed 44 percent of liver disease cases in women, compared to 23 percent in men, according to the study published in BMJ Health & Care Informatics.

Early in January, Google announced it would remove some of its AI health summaries after a Guardian-led investigation found people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading information.

The company has said its AI Overviews, which use generative AI to provide snapshots of essential information about a topic or question, are “helpful” and “reliable”.

• Data privacy concerns: Gauging what the algorithm will do with the sensitive health information and what impact it will have on future insurance transactions or even employment may be uncertain.

“AI could be a powerful tool in healthcare, from diagnosis to women's health, by helping to find problems earlier and giving patients more personalized care. However, AI adoption must stay focused on people, making sure that technology improves clinical care instead of trying to replace it,” Dr. Sabine Kapasi, public health expert and UN advisor, told HealthandMe.

Dr. Kapasi added that while AI can help fill in significant gaps in healthcare infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, “addressing the problems with fragmentation and making sure everybody enjoys equal access.”

AI: A Helpful Friend, Not Your Doctor

Consulting a qualified doctor for symptoms is always the better option than blindly trusting AI diagnoses.

Yet, AI-based health diagnostics have revolutionized healthcare significantly for women by improving early detection of diseases that are historically under-researched, underdiagnosed, or overlooked.

In a widely reported case, a woman used Grok to analyze her daughter's wrist X-rays after an urgent care facility failed to identify a fracture. Grok successfully identified a distal radial head fracture that was subsequently confirmed by a specialist, helping the child avoid surgery.

More than traditional models that often lack gender-specific data, AI has the potential to analyze vast, diverse datasets that can help identify unique patterns in female physiology.

Pinky Promise, a pioneering AI-powered women's digital clinic in India, is revolutionizing gynecological care via chat-first consultations on a mobile app without shame or judgment. It has helped over 350,000 women nationwide.

Similarly, Ema: Your AI Best Friend is another AI app designed to navigate "femalehood," offering empathy and early detection of cycle issues, acting as a 3 a.m. support rather than a diagnostic doctor.

How AI Can Be Leveraged For Women's Health

AI can be used to decode long-standing research gaps, boost diagnostic accuracy, and enable personalized care for women across their lifespan. Key applications include:

Cancer Detection, where AI-assisted mammography can improve breast cancer detection. Some studies have shown a 20 percent increase in cancer detection without increasing false positives.

AI can also help analyze Pap smear images to detect cervical cancer.

In the case of endometriosis, a hard-to-diagnose condition specific to women, AI can help shorten the long diagnosis time for endometriosis (currently 7-10 years).

AI also helps optimize IVF procedures by analyzing (embryo) images and hormone levels.

Mental Health is another area where AI chatbots and algorithms have shown prowess, especially in the early detection of postpartum depression, which affects 15 percent of women.

“AI is neither a miracle nor a menace; it is a mirror of how wisely we choose to use it. I have always believed we must never start with health screening, but with ‘Health Risk Assessment’,” Dr. Rajendra Pratap Gupta, chairman- Health Parliament, creator of SHE App & former advisor to the Union Health Minister, told HealthandMe.

“With AI, risk assessment becomes predictive, personalized, and action-oriented, accelerating the shift toward 'predictive prevention' -- pre-emptive care. For women, this could be a game changer: enabling earlier interventions, smarter decisions, and better outcomes. But it must be deployed at the right level, with digitally literate populations and strong clinical oversight,” he added.

A staggering 80 percent of women worldwide silently bear the burden of autoimmune diseases, which often manifest as joint pain, hair loss, brain fog, and unexplained weight changes.

These conditions, which often begin with mild symptoms, over time, worsen and develop into chronic illnesses such as Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, and Rheumatoid Arthritis.

The conditions are challenging to diagnose as symptoms often fluctuate, overlap with other conditions like thyroid disorders or viral infections, and are sometimes affected by gender bias in medicine.

The delayed diagnosis significantly impacts women’s careers and personal lives.

“Approximately 80 percent of patients with autoimmune disorders are women, yet awareness remains low. Diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and autoimmune thyroid disease often begin during the most productive years of women’s lives, affecting careers, fertility, heart health, mental health, and overall quality of life,” said Dr. Uma Kumar, Head of Rheumatology at AIIMS, New Delhi, in an interview with HealthandMe.

“Correct diagnosis of autoimmune diseases is frequently delayed, leading to preventable organ damage and disability,” she added.

Autoimmune Diseases Often Speak Softly

There are more than 100 different types of autoimmune diseases. All occur when the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own healthy tissues, leading to chronic inflammation and damage to organs, joints, glands, or the nervous system.

Speaking to HealthandMe, Dr. Neeraj Jain, Vice Chairman, Department of Rheumatology at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said: “As a rheumatologist, I frequently see women living with persistent symptoms that remain unexplained for years before an autoimmune disease is diagnosed".

Dr. Jain explained that common symptoms include:

• Persistent fatigue
• Joint pain
• Hair loss
• Brain fog
• Unexplained weight changes
• Recurrent inflammation

“Because these symptoms can overlap with stress, hormonal changes, or lifestyle factors, diagnosis is frequently delayed,” Dr. Jain said.

Singer and actress Selena Gomez shared her experience with lupus in 2017.

“I would get fevers, headaches, and fatigue, but I always just kept going. I kind of ignored it, to be honest. … I don’t think I made the right decisions because I didn’t accept it. That’s extremely selfish, and at the same time, really just unnecessary. I’m not really proud of that,” Gomez was quoted as saying to TODAY.

Why Women Are More Affected

While an estimated more than 10 million individuals globally suffer from these disease, women face a fourfold higher risk than men.

The higher prevalence of autoimmune diseases in women is linked to:

• Genetic susceptibility
• Sex hormone influences
• Stress
• Environmental factors such as pollution

A 2020 study by Franklin University in the US found that many autoimmune disorders tend to affect women during periods of high stress, such as pregnancy or hormonal changes.

Research from a 2024 Stanford Medicine study found that inactivation of the X chromosome can trigger autoimmune responses.

Studies have noted the role of estrogen and an overactive immune system in increasing women's susceptibility to autoimmunity.

Environmental factors, including pollution, viruses, and mitochondrial damage, have also recently emerged as reasons driving autoimmune disease rates among women, as per a 2024 study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Exposure to PM2.5, nitrogen oxides, and ozone has been linked to increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis, particularly for genetically susceptible individuals. Living near busy roads, with constant traffic-related pollution, also correlates with a higher risk.

Why Early Detection Is Important

Early evaluation and timely diagnosis are essential. Appropriate treatment can significantly improve the quality of life and prevent long-term complications.

Persistent or unexplained symptoms should never be ignored, as early medical assessment can make a major difference in outcomes.

Telugu actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu, diagnosed with Myositis in her podcast, recalled subtle early symptoms:

“I remember specifically the year before I was diagnosed… I woke up with this condition. Early signs mimicked overexertion—fatigue during shoots, inability to hold props, and rapid exhaustion. A critical incident during an action sequence led to fainting and a head concussion, forcing me to pause work. I had to take a lot of steroid shots, which really messed up my skin.”

“Autoimmune diseases often speak softly through symptoms, but early listening can change the course of a life,” Dr. Jain said.

Similarly, Tennis star Venus Williams said that she was forced to withdraw from the 2011 U.S. Open after a seven-year struggle with Sjögren's syndrome, which she described as an “invisible” and “miserable” disease.

She suffered from debilitating fatigue, joint pain, numbness, and swelling.

While autoimmune diseases are considered chronic and cannot be cured, some individuals experience remission, where symptoms may lessen or disappear temporarily.

Key medications to treat the host of autoimmune disorders include immunosuppressants, steroids, Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs), and replacement Therapy.

Beyond medications, adopting lifestyle modifications can also help. Studies have proven that dietary changes such as adopting anti-inflammatory, nutrient-dense diets (e.g., AIP diet) and avoiding processed foods can help autoimmune conditions.

Techniques like yoga and meditation can help manage Stress and boost immune responses. Regular, moderate exercise can also help reduce inflammation and maintain mobility.

Autoimmune Diseases: A Gateway For Comorbidities In Women

The persistent inflammation, immune system dysregulation, and organ stress caused by the disorders often also compound risks for

• Heart diseases like heart attacks, strokes, and atherosclerosis
• Endocrine issues like hypothyroidism, Type 1 diabetes,
• Kidney problems,
• Liver inflammation and scarring,
• Bone loss, including osteoporosis, joint deformities, and fractures
• Mobility, vision, and balance issues
• Recurrent infections
• Brain fog
• Memory problems
• Mental health conditions like depression and anxiety

“Early diagnosis, appropriate treatment, and societal education are key to improving disease outcomes,” Dr. Kumar noted.

“Despite the availability of many effective drugs, there is still an unmet need. We must strengthen gender-sensitive research focused on women’s immune health and build awareness at all levels to address this silent epidemic.”