The Woman's Clinic is at 244 Coatsland Drive in Jackson. Practicing at the clinic are
Dr. Brad Adkins, Dr. Michael Epps, Dr. Paul Gray, Dr. Molly Rheney, Dr. Madhav Boyapati, Dr. David Soll, Dr. Ryan Roy,
Dr. Andrea Harper, nurse practitioners Betsy Swindell and LaCinda Butler, and nurse midwife Holly Smith.
For an appointment call 731.422.4642.
Other stories with our doctors
New treatments for women who miscarry
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| Dr. Ryan Roy, a board-certified obstetrician gynecologist, examines Randee Coley, who is pregnant. Coley, who also works at the Woman's Clinic, is among the majority of women who do not have pregnancy problems. |
Some women can't have children because of infertility issues. Another group can't have children because once pregnant, they usually miscarry in the first six to eight weeks.
"About five percent of women who can get pregnant basically can't get out of the first trimester," said Dr. Ryan Roy, a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist at the Woman's Clinic. The problem, called recurrent miscarriage, is the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks. It is just as devastating as not being able to get pregnant, he said.
Helping these women carry their babies to term has become a mission for Dr. Roy. He had the good fortune of doing his residency with a world-recognized expert in recurrent miscarriage: Dr. William Kutteh in Memphis.
Since he started practicing in Jackson five years ago this summer, he says, he has "lots of success stories" of women with recurrent miscarriage successfully delivering babies.
Recurrent miscarriage, said Dr. Roy, can have several causes. Once the cause is identified, some of the solutions are fairly simple.
For many years, said Dr. Roy, physicians considered genetics a major cause: The woman was predisposed to miscarry. More current studies show that only a small percentage of women have this problem. New ideas are emerging today making recurrent miscarriage "an exploding topic"…
Some women are predisposed to getting blood clots, a condition that manifests itself during pregnancy. Blood clots in the placenta can cause miscarriage. A daily shot of heparin, a blood thinner, during pregnancy helps the mother keep the baby.
Another common problem is an abnormality in an enzyme the body uses to process folic acid. If tests show the woman has the abnormality, said Dr. Roy, "her keeping the baby to term may be as simple as changing to a different vitamin."
Other hormonal problems can be treated medically.
Unusual cervical infections that can cause miscarriage can be treated with antibiotics.
Some women have a uterine abnormality that makes it difficult to keep the pregnancy. This often can be corrected with a surgical procedure.
"It's often a combination of simple things that can cause a miscarriage," said Dr. Roy.
In the past, doctors used to wait through three miscarriages before suggesting that there might be an underlying problem. Today, after two miscarriages in a short period, the feeling is that there's an underlying medical condition that needs treatment.
Most testing can be done in Jackson
"We can do most of the testing and treatment here, which saves the patient trips to Memphis," said Dr. Roy. The tests, he added, are best done when the woman is not pregnant.
Until an underlying cause for the miscarriages can be found, it's not unusual for the woman to ask if she is doing something wrong. "Short of cigarette smoking and working around certain toxic chemicals, we now know that the environment doesn't have as much influence as we once thought," said Dr. Roy.
Solving the problem of recurrent miscarriage has other advantages. A patient trying to keep her pregnancy found out her father died of a blood clot in his 40s. "Hopefully, now that we've identified that she has the same blood clotting condition, we'll prevent her from dying of the same thing."
Many women don't know they have a problem until it is triggered during pregnancy, he said.
Needless to say, Dr. Roy's patients are grateful to find out the cause of their miscarriages and to eventually be able to carry a baby to term. "We've even had more than one baby from the same mother," he says. "It definitely makes this job worthwhile when you have success."