Tag: obstetrician

Shedding Light on Infertility for National Infertility Awareness Week

In the United States, infertility affects 10-15% of heterosexual couples, making it one of the most common medical diagnoses for people ages 20 to 45 years old. Amongst married women in the U.S. specifically, 19% are affected. The WHO estimates that ONE in SIX couples worldwide experience infertility during their lifetime. LGBTQ couples face family building challenges at well. What these substantial numbers suggest is a high likelihood that most of us either know someone affected by infertility, or have been affected by infertility ourselves. Yet there is still so much that is not talked about when it comes to Infertility. Infertility can feel lonely and isolating to those trying to build a family. To address this, National Infertility Awareness Week, or NIAW, was started in 1989 to improve education and bring awareness to infertility.

Written by on April 25, 2023

Weather and Your Pregnancy

As I sit here on call on Easter Sunday, April 9, 2023, writing this blog post, I am reflecting about the last 48 straight hours of rainfall as well as the crazy weather shifts going on at the Masters golf tournament this weekend.  I started thinking about weather and temperature changes and pregnancies and the passing comments the doctors make to each other like “Good luck, big storm coming in tonight, be ready for some water to break.”  Does weather really affect pregnancy?  Does water break more often with pressure changes in the weather?  Do more women go into labor with storms?  Let’s take a closer look.

Written by on April 19, 2023

Postpartum Hair Loss

A very common concern for our postpartum patients is hair loss. I know for certain my wife was not happy seeing clumps of hair come out in the shower or while styling her hair.  Like most new moms, she immediately thought something must be wrong and that all her hormones needed to be checked. In actuality, postpartum hair loss is very common. And yes it is caused by hormones; however most of the time this is just a natural process.  Let’s take a deeper look.

Written by on April 13, 2023

So Your Baby is Breech

About 25% of babies will be breech at 28 weeks, but by term (37 weeks plus) only 3-4% of babies are. Your provider will assess fetal position throughout the third trimester with Leopold Maneuvers (gently feeling head, back and extremities with our hands on your belly). Generally by 34 weeks or so it is easy to tell if baby is head down or not, and if we can’t easily feel, we will perform an ultrasound in the 36th week. If breech presentation is confirmed at 36 weeks, we will discuss whether or not you want us to try to rotate your baby to a head down position. That is, if you want an external cephalic version!

Written by on April 7, 2023

Labor Precautions: When To Call

You are finally at term and the seconds, minutes and days seem to slow to a crawl. Your mother-in-law is texting you non-stop wanting to know when the grand-kiddo is coming. It’s hard to work or do your day-to-day activities because the baby is pushing on your pelvic floor so much you have this sense […]

Written by on March 29, 2023

Third Trimester Emergency? When to Call

Congratulations, you are in the final third of your pregnancy.  Hopefully, you passed your diabetes screen. If you did not, you are “enjoying” your new low-carb diet or possibly new medications. If this is your first kiddo you probably have a baby shower in the works. (I was amazed with how NICE everyone was with our […]

Written by on March 15, 2023