Center for Gynecology & Women’s Health
Women today have many options, including medical and natural alternatives, in preventing unwanted pregnancy and in planning and timing pregnancies. Our staff can counsel you on contraception options – explaining the comparative advantages and disadvantages of different
approaches – and prescribe the methods of your choice. Certain choices can also decrease risk of sexually transmitted diseases .
Methods of birth control include:
• hormonal birth control (in the form of pills, dermal patches, or injections);
• female and male prophylactics or other barrier methods;
• intrauterine devices;
• natural cycle methods;
• and permanent birth control through surgery.
If you chose to contracept, our staff can help you select a method that is right for you. Our specialists offer such procedures
as tubal ligation (surgical cutting of the fallopian tubes, which provide transit of eggs to the uterus), and can refer your
partner for vasectomy.
Our staff can also provide prompt advice on emergency contraception, for cases where you feel your other contraception may
have failed or you have had unprotected sex. These methods include prescription or over-the-counter, Plan B (“morning-after”)
pills (which are effective up to five days after sex, though they are most effective when
Essure® Tubal Sterilization for Permanent Birth Control
Frankford’s Center for Gynecology & Women’s Health also provides the Essure® procedure, which is an increasingly popular form
of tubal sterilization that does not require an incision. This newer approach, used safely, worldwide over the last ten years
– and approved for use in the U.S. since 2002 – provides the quickest return to activities of any sterilization technique.
Our team can perform the procedure in our offices, using minimal anesthesia.
Your gynecologist at our center will use hysteroscopy to place a tiny coil in each fallopian tube. Tissue in the tubes grows around these inserts, dependably blocking the tubes
and preventing eggs from reaching the portion of the tubes or the uterus where they could be fertilized.
The doctor accesses the fallopian tubes by advancing the hysteroscopic instrument through the vagina and the opening of the
uterus. This permits the doctor to see the tubes and pass a catheter through the scope to insert the coils.
Once the inserts are in place for three months, our staff will schedule the patient for a hysterosalpingogram (HSG), an x-ray
procedure performed in the radiology department, in which the radiologist – working alongside one of our center’s gynecologists
– injects a contrast die into the uterus and fallopian tubes to make imaging of these areas easier. If this test confirms
that the tubes are completely blocked, the patient can stop using other forms of birth control. Complete blockage is confirmed
in more than 95 percent of patients at this point and in all patients by six months. Pregnancy prevention is successful in
more than 99 percent of patients. (Note: The procedure is considered irreversible and the effects of surgical removal of
the coils on future fertility and pregnancy are unknown.) |
used within 72 hours) or the copper intrauterine device (which can be inserted up to seven days after sex). We provide prescriptions
for the Plan B pills for women as an contingency option to have on hand for their personal contraception. These pills normally
prevent fertilization of the egg altogether, alternatively preventing implantation of a fertilized egg as well.
If your goal is to plan for a healthy pregnancy, our staff can offer you prepregancy care and counseling to evaluate your health, review your medical and healthcare history, and encourage you to take any steps – including lifestyle adjustments – that will help insure
your health and that of your pregnancy. While we can offer you initial counseling on the safety of becoming pregnant, and
help advise you on your wellness goals for entering into pregnancy, our group does not provide prenatal care (care for your
pregnancy once you become pregnant). We are glad to refer you for prenatal and other obstetrical care within our referral
system.
For fertility issues, our group can also provide patients with referrals to fertility specialists and to Frankford’s interventionalists (for procedures such as fallopian tube catheterization ).
