Staying Healthy With a Well-Woman Visit Every Year!

Scheduling your  “well-woman” visit with a The Women’s Center healthcare provider every year is an important component to staying healthy.  Well-woman visits include a full checkup, aside from any other visit for sickness or injury you may have scheduled.

Well- woman visits focus on preventive care for women, which can include:

• Services, like shots, that improve your health by preventing diseases and other health problems
• Screenings, which are medical tests to check for diseases early when they may be easier to treat
• Education and counseling to help you make informed health decisions

What happens during a well-woman visit?

Your well-woman visit is a chance to focus on your overall health and wellness. There are 3 main goals for the visit:

• Documenting your health habits and history (kind of a “health baseline”)
• Getting a physical exam
• Setting health goals for the future

The Basics: What to Expect

1. Health habits and history
Before your physical exam, The Women’s Center provider will ask you to answer some questions about your overall health.

These questions may cover topics like your:

• Medical history and family health history
• Sexual health and sexual activity

Eating habits and physical activity

• Use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs

2. Physical exam
The Women’s Center provider will examine your body, which may include:

• Measuring your height and weight
• Calculating your body mass index (BMI) to see if you are at a healthy weight
• Checking your blood pressure
• Taking your temperature
• Doing a clinical breast exam (feeling your breasts and under your arms for lumps or other changes)
• Doing a pelvic exam (looking at your vagina and feeling around your pelvis)

3. Health goals
The Women’s Center healthcare provider will talk about your next steps for helping you stay healthy. Together, you can decide which screenings or follow-up services are right for you and for your overall health and fitness.

If you have health goals, like losing weight or quitting smoking, you and your Women’s Center provider can design a plan to help you meet these goals.