Meeting the needs of women at every phase of life

The list of women’s conditions and diseases we treat is comprehensive. Grady provides routine physicals and tests that are necessary to protect your health. But when problems develop, we can care for them. For example, we treat infections and sexually transmitted diseases; tumors and cancers of the uterus, ovaries and pelvis; the various pains that are unique to women, and menopause issues.

Grady Women’s Health specialists routinely handle pelvic floor issues such as urinary incontinence or bladder control, back pain, constipation and muscle spasms. We treat hormonal imbalances, endometriosis, and fibroid tumors.

Our mission is to provide the care needed to prevent health problems from occurring. While we work with women of all ages, we offer special services for teenagers, who are often just beginning to understand the unique issues women face.

We provide complete reproductive health care for women at all stages of life. Good reproductive health means that people are able to have a safe and satisfying sex life, can reproduce, and have the freedom to choose if, when, and how to have children. As part of this mission, we offer:

• Adolescent care to help young women manage the changes their bodies experience and the emotional issues associated with those changes. This care includes information about and prescriptions for birth control.
• Family planning services to help women manage pregnancy. We can help women to choose the type of contraception that is best for them and their lifestyles.
• Sexually transmitted infection treatment to cure infections and other conditions that can be barriers to close relationships.

Again, our goal is to protect women’s health and provide them with the options they need to manage their lives.

Any hospital can deliver a baby. We provide care that ensures the best outcomes for mothers and their children. Our mission is to set women up for the first three years of their babies’ lives – so the prolonged outlook is as good as it can be.

We do this by offering some services that are unique to Grady in Atlanta.  For example:

• Centering Pregnancy is a special prenatal program that is offered at only a handful of specially accredited Georgia hospitals – and only at Grady in Atlanta. The program is designed to create support groups of women whose babies are due on similar schedules. In addition to getting regular prenatal visits and examinations, program participants routinely meet in groups to learn to care for their own health and that of their babies.
• Baby Friendly encourages breast feeding, which has been shown to keep babies healthier. Grady is one of only two Atlanta hospitals certified to offer the program.
• Talk With Me Baby is a program that encourages mothers and other caregivers to spend time talking to newborns. Research shows that the brains of infants who are talked to regularly tend to develop faster than those who are not. Early brain development means that children communicate when they are younger and perform better in school.

Grady also offers traditional obstetric care, which includes prenatal care and fetal assessments, such as ultrasounds.

More than 90 percent of U.S. births involve a complication. Grady’s experience with emergencies, trauma, and complications will protect you and your baby.

No one else in Atlanta has Grady’s experience with difficult medical conditions, unexpected complications, and high-risk pregnancies. As Georgia’s best and busiest trauma hospital, we know how to instantly respond to emergencies that occur with patients. We also have all the resources and expertise to treat any problem that may develop.

This is important because many emergencies that occur in the last stages of labor and delivery involve women who had never been identified as being at risk. When each second can make a difference in the health of a mother or her baby, you can count on Grady’s experience and expertise to offer the right care quickly.

Newborn babies who need intensive medical attention are often admitted into a special area of the hospital called the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The NICU combines advanced technology and trained health care professionals to provide specialized care for the tiniest patients.

Grady’s Perinatal Center and NICU serve more than 40 counties in the north Georgia region. Premature and high-risk babies are cared for by a dedicated staff of neonatologists and neonatal nurses in our NICU. Our Angel II Neonatal Transport is a special mobile neonatal intensive care unit that stabilizes and transports sick and/or premature infants to Grady to receive special care.

Our team of reproductive health specialists includes physicians, nurses, social workers, and adolescent health educators who collaborate to provide teen-centered healthcare. Our health educators provide counseling and work with parents and students in local schools, churches, and local health agencies.

As adolescents begin to make important reproductive healthcare decisions on their own, it is important that they receive the best education and preventive information available. Grady’s Teen Center empowers adolescents by providing information and lifestyle coaching so they can make informed decisions.

Grady’s Teen Center offers confidential reproductive health services to males and females ages 12 – 19. Our services include:

• Birth control (IUDs, Implanon, Depo Provera, and all other methods)
• Gynecological care
• Pregnancy testing
• STI (Sexually Transmitted Infections) testing and treatment
• HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) testing
• HPV vaccines
• Sports physicals