Halle Berry, a menopause advocate and an investor in Nella, is pushing for a more comfortable option for pelvic exams through NellaSpec—a smaller, one-time-use speculum sold directly to consumers. Her message: women skip checkups when fear and pain take over,
For Halle Berry, the discomfort starts before the exam even begins.
She remembers opting out as a younger woman—skipping appointments for “two or three years” because she “just didn’t want to do it. ” not wanting to face what the visit could feel like. Her daughter. Nahla Aubrey. turned 18 this year. and Berry says she’s been bracing for a rite of passage she calls “torturous” when the familiar routine arrives: legs in stirrups. then “this big metal cold speculum jammed inside.”.
Berry is now betting that women’s anxiety doesn’t have to end at that doorway. In 2024. after her doctor misdiagnosed her perimenopause symptoms as herpes. she began advocating publicly for menopause and mid-life care and pushed for legislation to fund research and education in women’s health. That same year. she became an investor in Nella. a company behind NellaSpec. a different kind of speculum designed to make pelvic exams and Pap smears less intimidating—and. for some people. physically less painful.
NellaSpec is smaller than traditional speculums, sold directly to consumers for about $50 to $80, and it’s pitched as a more comfortable alternative that aims to reduce the sensory jolt of the standard device—cold, noisy and available in multiple sizes but still widely feared.
Experts generally recommend that women have an annual gynecology visit. which often includes a pelvic exam. and a Pap smear once every three years depending on age and risk factors. Berry argues that “it’s very important” to keep up with those yearly checkups. but she says fear and pain still drive many women to opt out.
“It’s very intimate, it’s personal,” Berry said, describing the moment when the exam begins and the metal instrument is inserted. “My daughter just turned 18, so she’s about to have her first visit.”
In menopause, the pain can be deeper. Berry says that “when you lose your estrogen, it’s painful down there” and that sex is also painful. In her telling. it’s the combination—vulnerability plus the office experience—that makes a speculum feel like an assault on comfort: “it feels like it’s opening you up as big as a Buick. That’s what it feels like in your mind.”.
NellaSpec, the company says, is a one-time-use plastic device designed to change the geometry and the feeling of the exam. Founder Fahti Khosrowshahi says the speculum is slimmer than a tampon and uses a four-prong system—more like a tulip opening—rather than the two-prong “duck-bill” method. Because the device pushes back vaginal tissue in four directions, it can be smaller and more comfortable, he said.
The product is sold via the company website or at Walmart in four different kits tailored for first-time exams, menopause and different body types. Those kits include a wipe, aromatherapy and comfortable socks, and they are not covered by insurance, at a cost of $50 to $80.
“We can take our health into our own hands,” Berry said. “Our comfort matters.”
She frames the pitch as overdue modernization of a basic tool. “That thing hasn’t been reimagined for a very long time,” she said.
The push toward comfort comes with a complicated history. Though speculums date back to Roman times. Berry’s comments reflect a broader record in which the device has been used in harmful ways—such as an account of one modern innovator testing it on enslaved women without anesthesia. and in Britain. women suspected of being sex workers being forced to undergo speculum exams. At the same time, the speculum has also been described as lifesaving by helping doctors detect cervical cancer.
Kate O’Connell White. M.D. chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University Chobanian & Avesdisian School of Medicine. said anything that makes gynecological exams easier. less painful and less scary is “a good thing. full stop.” She also pointed to why innovation has become necessary.
“My heart is breaking for the need for this innovation in this space,” White said. “Because what it really tells me is that many women have had the experience of a gynecologist or a nurse practitioner not taking their time with an exam and not giving people the care that they need around these exams.”.
White described practical steps she uses to make exams tolerable. including using the smallest size she can. using a lot of lubricant and going very slowly—“the three keys to a good pelvic exam.” She said that for the vast majority of patients she takes care of. they do not just tolerate it; many say it wasn’t nearly as bad as they expected.
Other clinicians, she said, may warm a speculum with water or use tables with a built-in heating drawer for specula.
But she tied comfort to money, too. White said the price point for many speculums means they are marketed toward a narrow group of people who can afford them, calling it “really expensive for something that you should not have to buy anyway,” and warning of an “equity problem.”
Even so, White said she can see why NellaSpec would appeal for several groups—women getting a first-time exam, people in menopause, women who are no longer sexually active or who have partners without a penis, and women who are overweight.
“Patients who are obese often get horrible GYN care across the country,” White said. She added that women of size have a harder time at the gynos office partly because not all places have larger size speculums. and larger size speculums are often more uncomfortable. “If this can help them,” she said, “that like, that’s a serious game changer for those women.”.
She also addressed the “bring-your-own-speculum” question. White said she would be open to using it if she could be sure she could use it correctly “and without causing you more pain.” She said she would want to test it on a model first. but added that if doctors cannot get it within 10 seconds. they may hesitate. “Because you’re never going to want to put something in and then have a problem with it once it’s inside of you. ” she said. “That’s even the worse.”.
White noted that doctors’ offices are also trying to move away from single-use plastic.
NellaSpec includes a reusable option for clinical settings that the company says is now in hospitals including the Cleveland Clinic, UC Systems, Kaiser and Columbia, with the cost included as part of the exam.
Still, she cautioned that NellaSpec can’t replace the Pap itself. “That’s when people hiss in and say, ‘What’s hurting?’ That’s the scraping of the Pap,” White said.
The bigger theme Berry returns to is a shift already underway in healthcare—more care moving into home-use and patient-owned devices and tests. and more decentralization. NellaSpec is positioned as part of that next wave, though White emphasized that comfort is not only about equipment. It’s also about time, attention and how the exam is conducted.
Berry’s strongest point is the one that hits after the facts: the cost of ignoring health.
White said there’s no price on health and on detecting cervical cancer early or pre-cancer before it becomes cancer. She urged readers to “ask a cancer patient” if there’s any amount of money they wouldn’t pay to avoid being where they are.
Berry echoed that urgency with a personal promise for what changes next. “What I love about Nella is that my daughter will see a different day,” she said. She described what she and her daughter have been able to do together: “It’s been so wonderful to talk with her openly about it.”
In Berry’s account, her daughter has seen her perimenopausal struggle firsthand—going from “an angry, mad, frustrated, perimenopausal woman with no idea what was happening to my body” to someone who feels confident, strong, and able to explain what’s happening without fear.
“She has zero fear of entering this time of her life,” Berry said.
Halle Berry NellaSpec Nella pelvic exam speculum Pap smear menopause advocacy perimenopause women’s health cervical cancer screening Walmart Cleveland Clinic Kaiser Columbia