Every woman needs quality care throughout her lifetime—whether she’s struggling with recurring fibroids or simply needs a checkup. We handle all female health care needs under one roof with an expert team of specialists, in a wonderfully warm and welcoming environment.
Annual Ob/Gyn exams is an important part of each stage for your health:
- Early years: Young women should start having an annual visit with an Ob/Gyn around age 15. This visit is usually more of a conversation about your overall health, birth control, and avoiding sexually transmitted diseases, than an exam. In most cases, a pelvic exam is not necessary.
It’s important to get comfortable with an Ob/Gyn you can trust and start your health journey.
- Reproductive years: This visit includes a pelvic exam and a breast exam. We will check for abnormalities, such as lumps or painful areas, uterine fibroids, and talk with you about any concern you might have (like benign but annoying conditions, such as UTIs, bacterial vaginosis, yeast infections, etc).
We will also check your blood pressure and body mass index (BMI), talk about nutrition, exercise, and weight management to help reduce your risk for Type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers down the line.
Depending on your family planning goals, we will talk about birth control, fertility options, preconception counseling, and what may work best for you, your lifestyle, and stage of life.
- Perimenopause and menopause: The average age of menopause is 50 to 52. At this stage in life, many women are having irregular or heavy periods. Their hormones may be fluctuating, leading to typical menopause symptoms, such as night sweats, mood swings, and hot flashes.
This is also the age when most women need to start getting mammograms. The 2015 American Cancer Society (ACS) guidelines suggest that women start getting annual mammograms at age 45 instead of age 40. This change is controversial among doctors and patients. The American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) recommends that women start mammograms at age 40. Your Forest Hills Ob/Gyn will make a recommendation based on your specific circumstances, like family history, the age any of your close female relatives were diagnosed, etc.