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It is National Women’s Health Week.  The goal this week is to promote healthy living for women.  We encourage women to seek preventative care with an Alpharetta women's health doctor.  Every year, women should have pelvic and breast exams.  Women ages 21 to 65 should start seeing an OB/GYN and start getting regular pap smears.  Depending on your pap smear history, you and your provider will determine the frequency.  Women age 40 and older should get regular mammograms.  At age 50, wome  Read more

Monday morning one of our phone nurses at our, Alpharetta Gynecology, receives a phone call from a patient.  The patient says, “I know I have a bladder infection.  I have these same symptoms 3 or 4 times per year.  Can you please call me in an antibiotic?” Our phone nurse declines to call in the antibiotic until the patient comes in for a urine culture. The patient gets frustrated because she needs to fit an appointment with our office into her busy day.  We empathize  Read more

By Dr Richard Robbins  Do not take Aspirin or Advil(ibuprofen) or Aleve (Naproxen sodium) during pregnancy unless specifically told to do so by one of our providers.Please be careful, because Aspirin, Advil, or Aleve MIGHT be one of the many ingredients in over-the-counter cold medicines. You have to look at the ingredients and if you are lucky, you’ll know what the heck all those strange words mean. I apologize that companies are not asked to list the category of each of their ingred  Read more

According to a study recently published by the North American Menopause Society, women with less sleep have lower sexual desire and satisfaction.  As is widely known, sleep disturbance is a common complaint from menopausal women.  Until now, many clinicians have focused on the physiologic changes during menopause, such as vaginal dryness, that may be effecting a woman’s sex drive.  We know that the decrease in estrogen after menopause causes physiologic changes to t  Read more

During pregnancy, approximately 1 in 10 women develop gestational diabetes.  Gestational diabetes can develop in women with no history of diabetes.  In pregnancy, the placenta supports the baby as it grows. Hormones from the placenta help the baby develop. But these hormones also block the action of the mother’s insulin in her body. Gestational diabetes develops when the pancreas fails to produce enough insulin to effectively metabolize glucose. In pregnancy, gestational diabet  Read more

By Dr Rick Robbins At least 50% of women will have some bleeding in the first trimester, not even including so-called implantation bleeding/spotting around the time you miss your full period. You should call us if you have 1st trimester bleeding and you’ll be evaluated for sure – although the type of evaluation varies depending on how far along you are. At < 6 weeks pregnant, we typically draw blood work, including HCG and progesterone, to determine how far along you are in the  Read more

By Dr Rick Robbins Gummy prenatal vitamins – and the truth they do NOT contain iron!!! As you likely know, prenatal vitamins are supplements to your diet – and recommended by almost all folks involved in prenatal care. As you also likely know, most prenatal vitamins contain minerals, including iron. Why? Because during the 9 months of your pregnancy, you and your growing baby need about 1000 mg of iron. Roswell Alpharetta high-risk obstetrics, recommends that the daily requireme  Read more

By: Dr. Lara R. Hart, MD As an Alpharetta women's health doctor, patients often ask me when they should bring their daughters in for their first OB/GYN appointment. There is not always a clear answer to this question. Certainly, if a girl of any age is having an issue with any of her “bikini zone” areas (breasts, vulva, vagina) it is wise to seek the input of an OB/GYN. Once menstruation or puberty has begun it is also a good time to initiate contact with an OB/GYN. In this post, I will  Read more

By Dr Richard RobbinsThrough July 21st, over 400 pregnant women in the USA (not including US territories where there are another 400) contracted the Zika virus. As best we know, ALL of these patients got their Zika in a Zika zone of transmission. Please refer to the CDC for active Zika territories http://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/active-countries.html.  Zika symptoms include fever, rash, joint pain or eye redness.  However, Zika often has no symptoms at all. Not pregnant?If you travel to a  Read more

Yes!  It’s not easy for us to keep up with the pap smear guidelines, so we can’t expect our patients to know them.  The confusion surrounding the frequency of gynecology appointments stems from the changing pap smear guidelines.  Although you may not receive a pap smear every year, you still need a gynecology check up. Our practice has agreed to pap smear guidelines that are more conservative than those recommended by the US Preventative Health Task Force. The Task Force g  Read more