St. Clair Health: A Lifetime of Women’s Healthcare

By Kevin Brown

From daughter to mother and grandmother, a woman’s life can have many stages. In each of these stages, she will have different healthcare needs. She deserves the very best care and St. Clair Health’s obstetric and gynecologic services are there to meet those needs – for a lifetime.

Michelle L. Harvison, M.D., chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at St. Clair Health, recently spoke about meeting those needs. She practices with Advanced Women’s Care of Pittsburgh, is board-certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and was named a Top Doctor by Pittsburgh Magazine in 2022.

Life Stage: Puberty

“When young women first start seeing us, it’s generally in their teen years because they are having concerns with their periods,” she said. “The most important thing for us to do with an often-scared young lady is to talk to her about what to expect with her periods, what's normal and what's not normal, and what options she has,” she explained.

“The next step is when they want to become or have recently become sexually active. And so, it’s important to talk about safe sex and what to be aware of, pregnancy prevention, and options,” she said.

Mental health is another concern for young women, according to Dr. Harvison. “We talk to them about lifestyle changes and what we can do with therapy to avoid medications. St. Clair Health offers a wide range of therapy programs depending on the situation, as well as a very good psychiatric program,” she said.

Life Stage: Reproductive Years

For many women, motherhood is a defining role in their lifetimes. “A lot of patients see us for preconception discussions or counseling and we talk about their risk factors, expectations for conception, what medications are safe, and what to avoid to help them navigate starting a family. Along with that are patients who have problems such as infertility or recurrent miscarriage,” she noted.

St. Clair Hospital’s Center for Women and Children offers a wide variety of educational programs for expectant parents including Baby Basics to prepare new parents for life with a baby, an eight-hour Childbirth Preparation class, a Family Birth Center Tour, as well as Labor and Delivery 1-2-3, Introduction to Breastfeeding, and Family and Friends: Infant/Child CPR. They also have a Lactation Center with an on-site lactation consultant.

When it comes time for the big event, St. Clair Hospital’s Family Birth Center features private labor/delivery/recovery/postpartum (LDRP) rooms providing warm and comfortable settings for vaginal deliveries supported by state-of-the-art technology. Operating rooms are located in the unit for Cesarean section (C-section) deliveries. After a C-section, new mothers can recover with their babies in a private, monitored environment.

The Family Birth Center team includes board-certified obstetricians; a board-certified pediatrician on staff 24 hours a day; a Level II Special Care Nursery for infants who require extra care; and nurses who are specially-trained in labor, delivery, and post-partum care.

Following motherhood, a woman’s healthcare needs change. “In the theme of taking care of the whole woman for her whole life, , we do a lot of primary care, treating anxiety and depression, helping women with weight loss - focusing on her entire well-being and not just her gynecological concerns,” she explained.

Life Stage: Elder Years

“Menopause is interesting because it's not something that a lot of women talk about,” Dr. Harvison said. “They don't really know what to expect, what are normal symptoms, what should be treated and what shouldn't. There are many symptoms that really impact the quality of life in a very negative way that we can treat.”

In her senior years, it is important for a woman to continue to see her gynecologist to maintain her health. “With annual exams, we are doing breast exams to screen for breast cancer and making sure they're getting yearly mammograms. We're doing pelvic exams to screen for cervical and ovarian cancer. We talk to them about post-menopausal bleeding, which could be a sign of endometrial or uterine cancer. And we're making sure they're getting their bone densities regularly to screen for osteoporosis,” she noted.

St. Clair Hospital’s Breast Care Center offers education, early detection, treatment services, and the most advanced diagnostic imaging technology in an environment of comfort and convenience.

“St. Clair Hospital recently developed a really nice program where, when a woman goes for her screening mammogram, they calculate her risk for developing cancer,” Dr. Harvison said.

“A woman with a 20 percent or greater risk of breast cancer is referred to the breast program.
If she has an extensive family history of breast, ovarian or colon cancers, then we will perform genetic testing so we can assess her lifetime risk and what interventions we need to do to decrease those risks.”

From teen years to senior years, a woman can be assured that all her healthcare needs will be met at St. Clair Health. For more information about women’s health services, contact St. Clair Health at 412-942-4000 or visit www.stclair.org.