Sparks & Favor PC

The Apgar score was developed in 1952 by New York anesthesiologist Dr. Virginia Apgar. Dr. Apgar was the first woman full professor at Columbia University. She wanted to establish a standardized method for “grading” how well a newborn transitions to life outside the uterus. She chose five signs of newborn well-being that could be easily judged without interfering with its immediate care. Her tool was simple for the hospital staff to learn and did not leave too much room for individual interpretation…

We hope that you and yours have been well so far. But we will likely continue to see significant numbers of new flu patients into the early spring. If you are one of the unlucky group who does not get through until spring without flu misery, we encourage you to call our office promptly, especially call if you are pregnant! You may benefit from a prescription for an anti-viral medication such as Tamiflu. These medications fight the flu virus inside your body. They are not antibiotics—their action is specific for the flu virus. Anti-viral drugs are not…

Several of you have asked us about a recently published medical study that triggered media attention. Headlines like the Washington Post’s “Study: Milk may not be very good for bones or the body” have drawn readers to a Swedish study that linked high milk intake in women to a higher risk of bone fractures and of death from other causes.

For a generation of women who have spent our adult lives trying to ensure that our diets provided enough calcium to protect us from the terrible effects of osteoporosis (weakening of bones), this was indeed disturbing news. Should women…

Each October hundreds of unlikely pink makeovers—NFL football shoes, the White House lit up at night, Kate Hudson’s hair, to name a few—remind those of us over 40 to schedule our annual mammograms. Although it’s nearly impossible not to get the message, nearly a third of all women over 40 have not had a mammogram within the past two years. Even among women whose health insurance takes cost out of the decision, around 29% are skipping their annual mammogram. Often the reason is simply the difficulty of fitting the test into their busy lives, but some…

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women of all races.  About 1 in 8 American women will develop breast cancer in her life. In certain families the risk is much greater than average.

Other cancers (ovarian and colorectal, for example) also seem to occur at higher rates in certain families. Sometimes a defective gene (the genetic material that parents pass to their children at the moment of conception) carries this higher-than-normal cancer risk down through generations in a family. Heredity probably causes only about 5 to 10 percent of all cancers. But knowing whether your family…

As students head back to college campuses, we want to remind our patients—both young women and their parents—of some health-related concerns that accompany the return to campus life. This is a good time to schedule an annual well-woman appointment. Our professional organization, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, recommends that all young women of this age group have a gynecologic visit. Whether or not this visit includes a pelvic exam (depending on individual concerns), the appointment provides a general wellness check-up, a review of medical history and immunizations, and an opportunity for teaching about…

First let me say Happy Father’s Day! Whether you’re a first-time dad or you’re adding a brother or sister, you may be thinking quite a bit this weekend about the job you’re about to take on. Although you’ve been to the childbirth classes, taken the hospital tour, assembled the crib, and installed the car seat, you’re still a little nervous about being ready for the big day.
Of course, I am the only dad at Sparks & Favor, so this year I thought I’d try to offer you a few thoughts I…

One of the great success stories of modern preventive healthcare has been the fight against cervical cancer. In the U.S. deaths from cervical cancer have fallen nearly 75% (1955 to 1992) because we began regular screening programs for women (the Pap test).

In the 1980s we discovered that cervical cancer is caused by a virus known as the human papilloma virus (HPV). This discovery led to new tests to identify women who carry the virus, and therefore are at risk for cervical cancer. It also led to the development of a vaccine against the virus. We now view cervical…

In my practice as a Birmingham gynecologist, I must occasionally convey to a woman that she is facing ovarian cancer. Around 20,000 American women are newly diagnosed each year.  When ovarian cancer is discovered at an early stage, the chance of surviving the disease is good. Unfortunately, ovarian cancer has no specific symptoms in its early stage, and no accurate screening tests exist to help physicians diagnose it early. Advanced ovarian cancer is very serious and very difficult to treat. Among American women, it causes more deaths than any other gynecologic cancer. But now women’s physicians are discussing…

Low-Dose, Generic, Extended-cycle–which pill is best?
Since they became available in the 1960s, birth control pills have contained a combination of progestin and estrogen. The progestin prevents ovulation and the estrogen suppresses irregular bleeding. The early pills contained a very large dose of estrogen, 150 micrograms (mcg). As you can imagine, large estrogen doses caused side effects like nausea, headache, weight gain, breast tenderness, etc. Over the years since then, the pill’s estrogen dose has gradually been reduced. Birth control pills marketed today contain 35 to as low as 10 mcg of estrogen…