Delivering babies and caring for their moms, during pregnancy and well into menopause, offers our obgyns a unique perspective on Mother’s Day.

Get proper care before getting pregnant

We are passionate about prenatal care! Did you know that mothers who do not receive prenatal care are three times more likely to deliver low birth weight babies? Ask your Health Central obgyn about what steps you can take now to protect your little one and take at least 400 micrograms of folic acid to lower your risk for certain birth defects.

Don’t give up on getting pregnant

Sometimes it’s easy to get pregnant, but for 1 in 7 couples Mother Nature will need a little assistance. Ask any one of our obgyn doctors for tips on maximizing your fertility and getting pregnant. Health Central Women’s Care Dallas offers fertility testing and infertility treatment should you experience barriers to conceiving a baby. Every woman deserves to have the best odds for starting or expanding her family.

Expect great care while you are expecting

During pregnancy, no question or concern is too trivial. Whether this is your first pregnancy or fourth, Health Central will support and care for you through each trimester. Our team of obstetricians and nurses specialize in both routine and high-risk pregnancies.

If you’d like to visit with us about prenatal care or are deciding on an obstetrician or gynecologist, contact us here. Whether you are a veteran, new or soon-to-be mom, Health Central Women’s Care Dallas celebrates the women who choose motherhood. Happy Mother’s Day to you and yours!

For example:

• A new women’s health study out of Penn State linked attitude and exercise with fewer hot flashes. Researchers evaluated two groups of women: one experienced more hot flashes after moderate to vigorous exercise, and one felt fewer hot flashes after a workout. The study concluded that women with perceived control over their bodies experienced fewer hot flashes.
• Another study published recently in the journal Menopause concluded that the ‘brain fog’ of menopause is real. This is not surprising to anyone who has forgotten the car keys again.

About menopause

The ovaries begin to stop making estrogen and progesterone on the average sometime between a woman’s 45^th and 55^th birthday. The time in a woman’s life when she ceases to have a menstrual cycle causes many physical symptoms. Your Health Central obgyn can talk with you about what to expect and how to manage any discomfort you may feel.

At any age, if you have not had a period in one year, you are in menopause. Premature menopause occurs before 40 when extenuating circumstances like genetics, illness or medical treatment impact the body’s natural rhythms.

Symptoms of menopause 

• Decrease in regularity, duration and flow of your monthly period
• Hot flashes and night sweats
• Sleeplessness
• Focus issues
• Irritability or mood swings
• Thinning hair on your head, but an increase of facial hair
• Vaginal dryness

Ask your obgyn about a comprehensive list of menopause symptoms and natural, homeopathic as well as prescription remedies.

Health Central Women’s Care Dallas counsels women at the onset and throughout menopause. Make an appointment with one of our caring obgyn doctors, and inform them if you have a family history of breast cancer, osteoporosis and/or heart disease.

“The goal of National Infertility Awareness Week is to raise awareness about the disease of infertility and encourage the public to understand their reproductive health.”

Your obgyn care should include fertility treatment options and a good doctor-patient relationship that invites open communication. In keeping with this year’s theme of “Don’t Ignore Infertility,” Health Central Women’s Care invites you to start the conversation today.

Age, biology, health habits/history and other factors impact fertility, so it’s important that you take proactive steps to protect your reproductive health.

4 Steps to Take if You Suspect Infertility

1. Consider the possibility of infertility. If you have tried for more than one year to get pregnant, or for six months after you turn 35, you are considered infertile. One in eight couples will face the disease of infertility.
2. Talk to your partner. If you suspect a problem, prepare your partner with the facts: female infertility causes one-third of all infertility cases, male infertility causes one-third of cases, and unexplained or a combination of male/female factors account for the remaining cases.
3. Ask your obgyn for a fertility workup. Simple blood tests can reveal problems with ovulation, and a semen analysis will test for sperm quality and quantity. Depending on these results, our obgyn doctors may recommend a hysterosalpingogram to rule out blocked fallopian tubes. Health Central Women’s Care specializes in helping you maximize your fertility.
4. Communicate to your family, friends, co-workers. If you decide to pursue fertility testing and treatment, you’ll want to decide how much information to share and what responses you’ll have to that pesky question: “When are you going to have children?”

Fertility is defined as the power to reproduce. Health Central Women’s Care believes in empowering women to make sound decisions. We can help you take action to improve the chances for getting pregnant. Call us today to speak with someone about a fertility workup.

Each month during menstruation, your body sheds the uterine lining, called the endometrium. If you decide that the side effects of having a heavy flow each month are disruptive and even cause you to feel weak (anemia), talk to your obgyn about ablation.

Again, women who wish to become pregnant should not consider ablation because it permanently removes the uterine lining. The uterine lining (endometrium) nurtures an embryo as it grows into a fetus and baby.

Health Central Women’s Care doctors perform this minimally-invasive procedure under IV or oral sedation in the comfort of
their own office.

3 benefits of endometrial ablation

• No more periods (in 95% of cases)
• Under sedation, women feel no pain during, and little discomfort after, the minimally-invasive procedure
• What recovery time? Return to normal activities the next day.

Andrea is now waiting for her post-operative visit with Health Central Women’s Care. In the interim, she will not use tampons. Then, in three months she will know whether her periods have lightened or stopped altogether.

“I didn’t even call my mom or sister to let them know I was having ablation because, like routine dental work, it was such a simple, in-and-out procedure,” Andrea said.

To find out if endometrial ablation is a good choice for you, contact the women’s advocates at Health Central Healthcare at their Dallas office.

PCOS symptoms can begin in the teen years

Do you have a history of irregular or missed periods or ovarian cysts?  Do you struggle with unexplained weight gain, excessive body hair on your face, belly or back, or severe acne? Do your mother or sister have a condition called PCOS?

The obgyn doctors at Health Central Women’s Care Dallas urge you to seek help in identifying the underlying cause of these red flags, particularly when symptoms emerge in the teen years.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a hormone imbalance that affects 10% of women of childbearing age. An elevated level of male sex hormones (including testosterone) negatively impacts the ovarian function of maturing and releasing eggs every month. This, of course, makes it difficult for a woman to get pregnant.

Birth control pills that regulate a woman’s cycle and control benign ovarian cysts can mask the signs of PCOS. This is dangerous because in addition to contributing to infertility, PCOS also significantly raises a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer. In addition, because of associated insulin resistance, PCOS can contribute to the risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

How Does an Obgyn Treat PCOS?

• If a patient with PCOS decides to get pregnant, our obgyns may prescribe fertility medications to regulate ovulation.
• Once it is determined that no insulin resistance exists, we may prescribe oral contraceptives to help control acne, excessive facial hair, and to regulate the menstrual cycle.
• Androgen-lowering medications can also help resolve unpleasant PCOS symptoms.
• Obesity contributes to PCOS and female infertility; so Health Central Women’s Care physicians and nurses counsel patients on a heart-healthy diet, exercise regimen, and lifestyle changes such as smoking cessation.

Before you begin a long-term course of therapy on birth control pills, talk with your obgyn about your risk for PCOS. A gynecologic exam at Health Central Women’s Care Dallas and discussion about family history can help rule out this hormonal imbalance and set your mind at ease.

How Does Essure Protect Against Pregnancy?
Unlike a monthly oral contraceptive, Essure provides birth control without the use of hormones. The tiny inserts (made of the same flexible, soft material as employed in heart stents) block a woman’s fallopian tubes. This makes it nearly impossible (99.8% of the time) for sperm to reach the egg and a woman to become pregnant.

This permanent birth control technique appeals to the half million women who are done having babies, and prefer a hormone-free, non-surgical alternative to traditional birth control.

Permanent birth control may not rank among the most romantic topics to cover on Valentine’s Day, but the assurance of Essure brings peace of mind for many couples.
If you want to explain the process over dinner tonight, begin with the fact that the obgyn doctors at Health Central-Dallas perform the in-office procedure in about 10 minutes.

Other facts your Valentine will want to know about Essure:

1) The Essure system involves mild sedation and a transvaginal approach with no cutting or scarring.
2) You’ll return to regular activities the next day.
3) You’ll need a back-up system of birth control for three months until your Health Central doctor can confirm that your fallopian tubes are completely blocked, using a simple x-ray procedure.

Think of Essure as the non-surgical alternative to having your tubes tied. Forget chocolates and flowers. This Valentine’s Day, give yourself freedom from the worries of a potential pregnancy.

Health Central Women’s Care obgyn doctors care for women at all stages of life, helping them make informed choices about their gynecological care.

Types of birth control

Hormonal methods, including “the pill” that revolutionized birth control, work by preventing female ovulation. Today’s options for hormonal birth control include oral pills, implants, injections, patches, vaginal rings and emergency contraception. All oral contraceptives carry a risk of blood clots. A new man-made hormone (drospirenone) in some contraceptives seems to be associated with elevated risks.

Intrauterine birth control, including copper and hormonal IUDs, offers another nearly 100 percent effective option. Your obgyn at Health Central Women’s Care can insert a small device into the uterus, providing effective birth control for nearly a decade in some cases.

Barrier methods such as condoms, diaphragms, cervical caps, spermicidal foam, suppositories and sponges, can help prevent pregnancy, but are considered less effective than items 1 and 2 in this list. Latex condoms, the only form of birth control that protects against sexually transmitted disease (STD), should be used every time you have sex with an untested partner.

Permanent birth control (vasectomy and tubal ligation) appeals to men and women that have decided to close the door on getting pregnant.

Dr. Clark W. Griffith regularly counsels his patients on family planning and contraception.

“The best method of birth control is a very personal choice, one that involves deciding on your goals for having (or not having) children,” says Dr. Griffith.

Dr. Griffith will also consider your health history and habits that could impact the effectiveness or safety of your choice. For instance, do you often forget to take pills? That definitely impacts the birth control method that will work best for you.

Obgyn doctors do not consider natural family planning (charting your ovulation), breast-feeding or the withdrawal method (removing the penis before ejaculation) effective forms of birth control.

Your friends will have opinions on the best way to avoid getting pregnant, but if you have questions about which type of contraception best suits your current needs, talk to an expert. Health Central Women’s Care has been helping women plan for and avoid pregnancy for over 20 years.

The March of Dimes reports that 120,000 babies are born with physical and/or mental birth defects each year in this country. The most common birth defects include: heart defects, cleft lip and cleft palate, Down syndrome and spina bifida.

Ob gyns Identify and Protect Against

Ob gyns help women prevent birth defects by advising them of steps to take prior to getting pregnant and during pregnancy.

Birth Defects

Sonograms and prenatal visits to Health Central Women’s Care can reveal these common birth defects, and, in some case, medical intervention that can correct some issues in utero.

It is possible to prevent certain birth defects by taking action prior to and during pregnancy. The doctors at Health Central Women’s Care advise all of their obstetrics patients to take proactive steps to help prevent birth defects.

1. Abstain from alcohol, illegal drug use and certain prescription drug use. Ask your ob-gyn doctor about which over-the-counter and prescription drugs are deemed safe for unborn babies. The March of Dime and CDC also caution against smoking cigarettes while pregnant.
2. Take 400 micrograms of folic acid every day, beginning at least one month before you get pregnant. This B vitamin helps decrease the risk of brain and spinal defects–spina bifida and anencephaly–by 50-70% according to the CDC. You can get your folic acid in a multivitamin or a bowl of breakfast cereal with 100% daily value of folic acid.
3. Talk with your obgyn doctor about preventing infections and whether your vaccinations are current. You’d be surprised how simple actions like changing the cat litter, eating brie or undercooked meat or a lapsed immunization schedule can impact your unborn child. Ask about a fact sheet to learn more about Health Central Women’s Care recommendations.

While it can seem overwhelming to imagine what can go wrong in pregnancy, all the Health Central physicians reassure their patients every day, arming them with the facts that can help increase the odds of a normal pregnancy. Simply by living in an industrialized nation, one with iodine in our salt and folic acid in our cereal, flours and grains, we protect our babies from neural tube birth defects.

If you plan to get pregnant in 2012, make an appointment with one of the skilled and caring obstetricians at Health Central Women’s Care.  The best time for that appointment is 3-4 months before you want to start “trying” to get pregnant.

An annual wellness visit just takes an hour or so, but the recommendations Health Central doctors make during that one-on-one time can greatly impact your daily life and long-term health.

Top 5 healthy habits your obgyn wants you to practice:

1. Following our dietary advice and exercise recommendations can make a dramatic difference in regards to your health and wellness, and even your fertility. Did you know that being overweight or underweight could impact your reproductive system, interrupting ovulation?
2. If you plan to get pregnant in 2012, ask the obgyn doctors at Health Central Women’s Care for the proactive steps you can take now for the optimal health of your baby.
3. Remaining current on your vaccination schedule can save your life. That’s why Health Central Women’s Care offers an Electronic Medical Record System so that you can easily and efficiently access your shot records as needed.
4. Pay attention to the three numbers that define your health: blood pressure, cholesterol and weight. If these numbers fall outside a recommended spectrum, your obgyn can offer resources to return them to an optimal level. We also recommend bone density testing when appropriate.
5. Learn how to effectively and regularly give yourself a monthly breast exam. Early detection is key to survival, so your obgyn can’t stress enough the importance of a breast self-exam (BSE).

Resolutions for a happy and healthy New Year start with optimism and fall within a manageable plan. One tip from The Dallas Morning News’ “12 Healthy Ideas for 2012 New Year’s Resolutions” reminds resolvers to put something on the calendar, like a 5K run, to motivate their efforts.

To make your appointment for a 2012 well-woman visit, contact the women’s health experts at Health Central Women’s Care.