Women’s Health

During a pelvic exam, a clinician may notice that the cervix looks red, swollen, bumpy, enlarged, or different from expected. These changes can be worrying, but many have a benign cause. It also helps to separate two parts of the visit: A Pap test does not diagnose a visible lump, ulcer, or polyp. In the…

A heel stick looks simple, but doing it well — getting enough blood, with minimal pain, and without injuring the baby — comes down to two things above all: the right site and the right depth. This guide walks through where to puncture, how deep, and the full step-by-step technique for an infant heel stick…

In the first day or two of life, almost every baby has a few drops of blood taken from the heel — the newborn heel stick (also called a heel prick or heel lance). It looks small but does a big job: it screens for serious but treatable conditions before any symptoms appear. This guide…

If your family has decided on circumcision, knowing what actually happens — and how to care for your baby afterward — takes a lot of the worry out of it. This guide walks through how a newborn circumcision is done, the pain relief used, the three common techniques, the healing timeline, and step-by-step aftercare, including…

Deciding whether to circumcise a baby boy is one of the first big choices many new parents face, and it is rarely a purely medical one. This guide lays out what infant circumcision is, the evidence-based benefits and risks, what major medical organizations actually recommend, whether it hurts the baby, and the practical factors that…