Author: admin

Pregnancy changes your body in a number of ways, including opening you up to new health conditions. For example, pregnancy hormones can make insulin less effective, increasing your risk of gestational diabetes.

Some of the changes you experience during pregnancy get a lot of public discussion, like morning sickness. Others are lesser known but more serious to address. Those include gestational diabetes, or diabetes that develops as a direct result of your pregnancy. 

Fortunately, here at Burlington OBGYN Associates in Burlington, Massachusetts, our all-female team of doctors and nurse practitioners can help you watch out for this condition by testing for it at our on-site lab as part of your prenatal care. And if you do develop gestational diabetes, we can help you manage it.

Warning signs of gestational diabetes

Gestational diabetes develops when your body stops using insulin efficiently. Your body needs insulin to convert blood sugar into energy for your cells. The hormonal changes you experience while you’re pregnant can get in the way of your body’s insulin usage, which can cause sugar to build up in your blood. 

Unfortunately, gestational diabetes usually doesn’t cause obvious symptoms. Plus, some of the symptoms of this condition — like more frequent urination — are also known side effects of pregnancy in general.

There is one telltale warning sign you can watch out for, though. If you have notably increased thirst, talk with our team. 

Treating this condition

Because gestational diabetes usually doesn’t cause symptoms, we regularly screen for it throughout your pregnancy. If we discover that your blood sugar levels are elevated, we work with you to manage them. 

In most cases, treating gestational diabetes means making certain lifestyle changes while continuing to monitor your blood sugar levels. With a healthy diet and more frequent exercise, most women can keep their blood sugar at safe levels for themselves and their babies. 

During your pregnancy, exercise should be moderate. About 30 minutes a day of brisk walking, yoga, swimming, and other pregnancy-safe exercises are ideal.  

Our Burlington OBGYN Associates team can develop a nutrition and exercise plan for you to follow to minimize the risk of complications if you develop gestational diabetes. 

Preventing diabetes before and during pregnancy

Avoiding this condition starts before you get pregnant. You’re much less likely to develop gestational diabetes if you’re at a healthy weight, eating nutritiously, and exercising regularly going into your pregnancy.

Once you’re pregnant, two things — you guessed it: a healthy diet and regular exercise — go a long way toward preventing high blood sugar levels. Try to eat lots of produce, fiber, and whole foods while steering clear of excess fat and salt. 

We can also help you keep tabs on your weight gain. You do need to gain weight for a healthy pregnancy, but gaining too much too fast spikes your risk for gestational diabetes. 

We’re here to provide exceptional obstetric care. To get screened for this condition throughout your pregnancy and to put a treatment plan in place if you need one, Call Burlington OBGYN Associates or book an appointment online today.

Your daughter’s 13th birthday marks the start of a new season of life — one during which she should get regular gynecological care. Here’s what to know about that first appointment and when you should schedule it.

Watching your children become adolescents probably raises a lot of emotions in you. You might feel proud as you see them grow and become their own unique person. You might also feel worried that it’s getting more difficult to protect them.

If you have a daughter, though, she has access to a greater level of protection as she enters her teenage years. That marks the time to start gynecological care, which can safeguard her against a wide range of health concerns. 

Our all-female team of doctors and nurse practitioners welcomes you for that first appointment at Burlington OBGYN Associates. As specialists in adolescent gynecology, we know how to help your daughter feel as comfortable as possible at that visit — and how to use it to the biggest health advantage for her. 

So, when should she have her first gynecologic visit? Here’s what you should know.

When to make that first appointment

That 13th birthday doesn’t just mark your daughter’s transition from the pre-teen years. It also means you should start thinking about making her first gynecologic appointment. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends that teen girls first see a gynecologist sometime between the ages of 13 and 15. 

Because most girls start their period around age 12, early teen gynecological care means they have a doctor involved if they experience issues like painful or heavy periods. It also means that your daughter can start building a relationship with her gynecologist. 

This helps her feel comfortable so she can ask her doctor questions about her body as it changes through adolescence. 

What to expect

We strive to make your daughter’s first gynecologic appointment as comfortable as possible. One of our friendly specialists completes her physical exam and talks with her about any questions she may have. 

If your teen daughter is worried about a Pap smear, you can put her mind at ease. Unless early screening is recommended — for example, if you have a family history of cervical cancer — the ACOG doesn’t recommend starting routine Pap tests until age 21.

We tailor your daughter’s care specifically to her through the years. We can provide vaccines to defend against common health risks, partner with her on nutrition education and healthy weight management, provide birth control prescriptions and STD testing when she becomes sexually active, and so much more. 

To schedule your daughter’s first gynecologic appointment, call Burlington OBGYN Associates at our office in Burlington, Massachusetts, or book an appointment online today.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so we want to highlight some key benefits of getting regular mammograms. Here are three reasons to book your appointment as soon as possible.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, when organizations around the country call attention to this major health concern. It’s a critical time to raise awareness and to take action. 

And because more than 700 US women get diagnosed with breast cancer every day, there’s no time like the present to get up to speed on this condition. 

That ranges from understanding the treatment options for breast cancer — and the good news is that several treatments are available, and they’re usually highly effective with a timely breast cancer diagnosis — to preventive measures and screenings.

Here at Burlington OBGYN Associates, we can help with that. Our all-female team of doctors and nurse practitioners offers mammography at our office in Burlington, Massachusetts, and we want you to understand that a routine screening mammogram could save your life.

If you’re over 40, it might be time to start getting this screening on a yearly basis. And if you’re overdue or you’ve been putting it off, let’s look at three reasons to schedule your mammogram ASAP.

Breast cancer is common

It tops the list in terms of cancer cases in the United States. While breast cancer does occur in men, it’s far more common in women. The National Cancer Institute estimates that nearly 300,000 women will be diagnosed with this kind of cancer before the end of 2023. 

Ultimately, you have a one in eight chance of developing breast cancer at some point in your life. Routine mammograms give you a way to monitor your body and catch breast cancer as soon as possible if it does develop.  

Breast cancer is very treatable when it’s caught early

While the number of cases of breast cancer is high, the death rate isn’t. When your doctors detect breast cancer early, your survival odds go way up. In fact, when breast cancer is caught in Stage 1, women have a 98%–100% survival rate after five years. Even when detected at Stage 2, that rate is 90%–99%. 

Routine mammography helps ensure that you and your doctors can get on top of cancer when it’s in its earlier stages. This dramatically increases your odds of living a long, healthy life after diagnosis. 

Mammograms are more effective than ever

Mammography technology has evolved. Rather than the 2D mammograms of the past, our team uses 3D digital mammography to see your breast tissue from more angles. We also leverage computer-aided detection technology in the process.

As a result, the mammogram you get in 2023 is more accurate and less likely to give you a false positive than mammograms of the past. This is an increasingly sophisticated tool designed to help protect your long-term health. 

Breast Cancer Awareness Month serves as a great reminder to schedule a breast cancer screening if you’re due for one. To set up your mammogram, call our office or book your appointment online today.

Menopause doesn’t have to turn your life upside down. With these tips and personalized menopause management care, you can stay healthy and well during this transitional period.

It takes a year from your last period before you reach menopause, and there’s also the drawn-out process of perimenopause and postmenopause. All told, most women go through several years of largely unwelcome changes as their reproductive cycle comes to an end.

But you don’t have to just suffer through hot flashes and mood changes or brace yourself for potential long-term health issues like osteoporosis. As experts in menopause management, our all-female team of doctors and nurse practitioners works to help women thrive during menopause and beyond. 

If you’re perimenopausal, in menopause, or figuring out life after this transition, visit Burlington OBGYN Associates in Burlington, Massachusetts. We can help reduce uncomfortable symptoms, personalizing a whole-body menopause management plan for you. 

These are our top tips for staying healthy during this time.

Explore hormone replacement therapy

This option can help you weather menopause with fewer symptoms. That’s because hormone replacement therapy (HRT) replenishes hormones as your body’s production of them naturally slows down. 

By preventing the steep and sudden dropoff of key hormones like estrogen, we can help you keep symptoms — from sleep problems to hot flashes and mood swings to vaginal dryness — at bay. 

We personalize HRT to your specific hormone levels. Talk with your Burlington OBGYN Associates provider about this option and whether it might be right for you. 

Take care of your body

Menopause isn’t a time to let your healthy habits slide. In fact, during this season of your life, the National Institute on Aging specifically recommends:

• Eating a healthy diet
• Getting enough vitamin D and calcium to support bone health
• Getting or staying physically active
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Avoiding tobacco products

With these healthy lifestyle choices, you support your wellness during a time when your body can really use the help. 

You might want to implement some new routines, too, to maintain your sexual health and overall health. Using lubricant gels can help you take care of your body by preventing painful sex, for example. And periodic bone density scans give you a way to proactively prevent problems like osteoporosis. 

Take care of your mind, too

Menopause doesn’t just affect you physically. It also impacts your mental wellness. Many women experience anxiety and depression during this season of life. 

Talk with our team about any mental health changes you notice. With options from stress management techniques to antidepressants, we can help you address unwelcome mental changes. We can also work with you to make lifestyle adjustments — like ways to get better sleep — that support your mental well-being.

You don’t have to let menopause take a heavy toll on your physical or mental health. For personalized menopause management care, call our office or book your appointment online today.

Learning that the results from your Pap smear showed abnormal cell growth can seem pretty scary. Here, we help you understand what this test result means and explain your next steps.

You likely know that you should periodically get a Pap smear — a gynecological screening that checks your cervix for unusual cell growth. Getting this testing done on the timeline your doctor recommends (every 3-5 years, for most women) means catching any potentially cancerous cell growth before it poses a serious risk to your overall health.

In other words, routine Pap smears are a critical tool to prevent fatal cervical cancer. In fact, this testing is now so commonplace that most women don’t give it a second thought.

At least, that’s the case until the results come back as “unclear” or “abnormal,” meaning the testing may have found something. If you get a call and learn your Pap smear is abnormal, you might feel scared or unsure of what to do next. 

We want to help. At Burlington OBGYN Associates in Burlington, Massachusetts, our all-female team of doctors and nurse practitioners doesn’t just offer Pap smears. We also help you navigate the results. 

What an abnormal result means

If your Pap smear returns abnormal results, it means the sampling of cells we took shows some unusual changes. 

Those changes could indicate the presence of human papillomavirus (HPV), which increases your risk for cervical cancer. In extreme cases, they could show that you have cervical cancer — but this shouldn’t happen if you’re getting Pap tests regularly. 

When you have an abnormal Pap smear, we grade the results from mild to severe. That determines what happens next. 

Next steps with mild abnormality

If you have mild cellular changes, it could mean you have an HPV infection. As a result, we might order an HPV test or wait a few months and perform another Pap test. This gives your body time to heal the infection. If your follow-up Pap smear doesn’t show any additional abnormal cell growth, you can relax.

Moving forward, we may recommend more frequent Pap smears to ensure that we catch any further unusual cell growth early. 

Next steps with moderate to severe abnormal cell changes

If we see a significant amount of cellular change in your Pap smear results, we usually recommend a diagnostic procedure known as a colposcopy. We use a speculum just like during a Pap smear, and then we use a lighted magnifying device (the colposcope) to examine the tissue in your cervix. 

We perform your colposcopy right here at our office, and it should take only 5-10 minutes. 

If we find any abnormal cell growth during your colposcopy, we perform a cervical biopsy. This means we take a small tissue sample so we can send it to the lab for further analysis. Your cervical biopsy is minimally invasive and doesn’t require any downtime afterward. We can offer local anesthetic to keep you comfortable, too. 

With a colposcopy and potentially a cervical biopsy, we can figure out what’s going on in your cervix. This way, we can tailor treatment to help you protect your cervical health and your overall health.

We pride ourselves on exceptional, compassionate care. If you’ve had an abnormal Pap smear — or you’re due for your next Pap — call our office or book your appointment online today.

Myths about endometriosis are as common as the condition itself. Here, we bust a few of those myths to help you better understand this disorder and the way it affects your uterus.

Your uterus is a complex system. When something goes wrong with just one of its components, it can lead to some serious discomfort.

Case in point: endometriosis. You develop this condition when your endometrium — the tissue that normally lines the interior of your uterus — grows outside of your uterus. This condition occurs more than you might think, and if you’ve received this diagnosis, you’re not alone. 

Our all-female team of doctors and nurse practitioners at Burlington OBGYN Associates in Burlington, Massachusetts, offers dedicated endometriosis care, and we can help you. Here, we bust a few common myths about this condition. 

Myth 1: Endometriosis is rare

Experts estimate that one in 10 women of childbearing age deals with endometriosis. That means 190 million women across the globe have experienced or are living with the discomfort and the other issues that this condition causes. 

Myth 2: You’re just having period cramps

Historically, when women sought medical care for endometriosis, they were often dismissed. That’s because the primary symptoms of endometriosis are a lot like period pain.

Here at Burlington OBGYN Associates, our female doctors and nurses understand normal period pain — and we know when your symptoms mean something else is going on. If you have serious pelvic pain when you’re menstruating, don’t hesitate to talk to us.

Myth 3: Endometriosis is always painful

For many women, it is. But you can also experience this abnormal tissue growth without any resulting discomfort. 

In fact, a lot of women only learn they have endometriosis when they’re trying to figure out infertility challenges. The misplaced tissue growth endometriosis causes can make it more difficult to get pregnant. 

That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to have a baby. But it does mean you should talk with our Burlington OBGYN Associates team. With a consultation, we can identify your body’s specific fertility challenges and work with you to develop a plan to overcome them. 

Myth 4: You can’t do anything about endometriosis

Far too many women suffer through their painful periods. It doesn’t have to be this way! We can create a treatment plan to alleviate your pain as much as possible. 

If you’re not currently trying to get pregnant, we can prescribe you hormonal birth control, which can help to soothe your symptoms. We also can prescribe gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists, which put you in temporary menopause to stop the growth of new endometrial tissue. 

If you’re ready to be done with your endometriosis once and for all, we can explore surgical options with you, too.

Ultimately, endometriosis is common, often painful, and treatable. It’s also possible to get pregnant even when you have this condition. The right medical care can make all the difference. 

If you think you might be living with endometriosis, call our office or book your appointment online today so we can create a personalized treatment plan for you.

Searching for the best birth control method can quickly become inundated with unsolicited advice from friends, ads from pharmaceutical companies, and your own anxieties. Instead, team up with our experts and let us walk you through your options.

Choosing the right method of birth control can be a daunting task, and here at Burlington OBGYN Associates in Burlington, Massachusetts, we understand that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. 

Our experienced doctors are here to help you find the method that best fits your lifestyle, values, and needs. Here are some things to consider when selecting your birth control method.

You’re looking for maximum protection

Is getting pregnant a hard no for you, or at least not in your near-future plans? You may want to consider long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC), such as intrauterine devices (IUDs) and hormonal implants, or short-acting hormonal methods, such as pills, patches, shots, and vaginal rings. 

Long- and short-acting hormonal methods are among the most effective birth control methods, with a nearly 100% protection rate, even with typical use. 

They work by preventing your ovaries from releasing eggs, making implantation unlikely or impossible, or making it difficult for sperm to reach the egg. 

The best part is that if you later decide to get pregnant, you can simply stop using these methods and resume your menstrual and ovulation cycles. 

However, if you’re not interested in starting a family at all, sterilization is the best option. Vasectomy is a choice for men, while women can opt for tubal ligation or salpingectomy (complete removal of the fallopian tubes).

You want birth control to be effortless

Most of our patients want their birth control method to fit seamlessly into their lives with no fuss and no hoops to jump through. If you like this hands-off approach to birth control, methods like IUDs and implants may be the best choice. 

Once the device is implanted, you don’t need to do anything else to maintain it. The copper IUD, ParaGard®, can offer pregnancy prevention for up to 10 years, while Skyla® offers three years, Kyleena® five years, and Mirena® eight years. Birth control implants like Nexplanon® are placed in your upper arm and deliver continuous pregnancy prevention by stopping ovulation for up to three years.

You want to guard against STDs

If protecting yourself against STDs is your greatest concern, condoms are your best option as they’re the only birth control method able to protect you from contracting a disease. Bonus: They can be used with any other birth control method you’re taking, adding an extra layer of protection against pregnancy.

You’re more au naturale

For those who prefer to take a more natural slant to pregnancy prevention, we recommend non-hormonal options such as spermicide, the natural rhythm method, and even abstinence. 

These methods require more willpower and diligence than others, but they are the most natural approaches and the easiest to stop and start, especially if you want to get pregnant quickly in the future. 

Using natural methods also makes it easier to detect a fertility problem if or when you want to start a family. 

Where we come in

You may already have your mind made up about which route is best for you, but we’d still like to discuss all of your options with you. Our doctors take a personalized approach when helping you select the best form of birth control for you. 

We consider factors like how often you have sex, possible side effects, the number of partners you have, your overall health, your comfort levels with a specific method, your future plans, and what has worked (or not worked) for you in the past.

If you would like more information about your options, don’t hesitate to request an appointment online or over the phone at our office today. We look forward to walking with you as you make this important decision about your health.