Experts call for a pregnancy and lactation filter on ClinicalTrials.gov to close a basic access gap

A group of experts writing in STAT News argues that ClinicalTrials.gov lacks a straightforward way for pregnant and lactating patients to identify trials they are eligible to join. They propose adding a dedicated checkbox as a low-cost structural fix to improve research access for a population that has historically been excluded from clinical trials.

Why it matters

The proposal is straightforward: add a checkbox to ClinicalTrials.gov that flags whether a trial accepts pregnant or lactating participants. Right now, identifying eligible trials requires reading through eligibility criteria manually, which is time-consuming for clinicians and practically impossible for patients navigating the site on their own. The authors frame this as a usability fix, and they are right that it is one.

But the checkbox also functions as a diagnostic tool. If the filter returns a thin list of results, that is useful information in itself. It would make visible, in a single search, how rarely pregnant and lactating people are written into trial eligibility criteria in the first place. The infrastructure improvement matters, and so does what the data behind it will reveal about how the research enterprise has treated this population.

What to watch

Whether NIH and the ClinicalTrials.gov team treat this as a metadata fix worth fast-tracking or let it stall in the longer queue of platform redesign priorities.