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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

According to the 2014 CDC data, approximately 32% of all deliveries are performed by c-section in the United States.  Many of our first-time moms want to know how to reduce their risk of delivering by c-section. Consider speaking to an Alpharetta gynecology specialist at Roswell. We recommend talking with our midwives to learn more to put your mind at ease and answer questions such as why you can't be induced earlier than your due date.   While our midwives don’t manage all our labor p  Read more

Risk reducing bilateral salpingectomy (aka removing the fallopian tubes). Guest Blogger Dr Richard Robbins discusses the benefits in reducing ovarian cancer by removing the fallopian tubes.Removing Fallopian tubes to prevent ovarian cancer? Why? And who should have it done?Here’s the general premise. Ovarian cancer as you know is generally a terrible disease, often found as stage 3-4 at first diagnosis. And so many studies have looked for ways to find earlier stage ovarian cancer (using  Read more