Women's sexual/reproductive health and access challenges amid COVID-19 pandemic

•COVID-19 pandemic has exaggerated many inequities normatively experienced by women.•Proportionately more women occupy lower-wage and frontline work positions with limited flexibility for pandemic-driven events.•Enforced stay-at-home orders compounded by work from home or employment loss amplified family violence.•Pandemic-related worries magnified mental health challenges for women.•Unprecedented demands for lifesaving, palliative and end-of-life care led to Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in nursing workforce who are primarily women.•Resources, programs and policies needed to maintain a robust registered nurses workforce that can support public health in the face of a pandemic. Challenges to women's health in the context of COVID-19 is based on their unique experience shaped by sex/gender. This paper provides clinical practice-, research-, and policy-related commentary on key COVID-19 pandemic factors impinging on women's sexual/reproductive health (SRH) and care access, particularly in the context of pregnancy, childbirth, sexual/gender variations, and concurrent chronic conditions. Women tend to have less severe outcomes from COVID-19 than men but certain sub-groups are more vulnerable than others. Yet few United States studies have disaggregated the data accordingly. Forming a basis for well-informed policy generation, needed is more research specific to COVID-19 vulnerability/risk factors and outcomes for groups of women by age, race and socioeconomic and cultural determinants. Access to SRH-related clinical services has been diminished during the pandemic, making a priority for restoring/preserving inclusive SRH care for women, for example, family planning, healthy pregnancies, age-related disease screening and treatment, and health/wellness promotion. Important concerns include severity of the disease, morbidity in pregnant and postpartum women, increased risk to the fetus, virus transmission to fetus or newborn, and impact of lack care access. Uncertainty in current knowledge is heavily related to lack of sex specific data.