Women’s Wellness at The Nest

04/03/2025

Do you have friends or family who live far from Anchorage and who are struggling with perimenopausal symptoms that are messing with their quality of life, such as poor sleep, hot flashes, or mood disturbances? Barbara Norton, ANP, does telehealth menopause consults! Barbara is one of only a few Menopause Society-certified providers in all of Alaska, and offers Hormone Therapy (MHT) and/or non-hormonal options to help ease the symptoms of the menopause transition. So far this year she's helped women in Cordova, Haines, Fairbanks, and Nome with MHT, so give us a call if you or your loved ones have had a hard time accessing this kind of specialized and individualized health care in Alaska!

03/13/2025

We’re thrilled to be able to offer primary care and chronic condition management to women and men now!

We are thrilled to announce the addition of a Family Nurse Practitioner to our team! Meet Jordin Thompson, FNP! She brings with her close to a decade of experience in urgent and primary care settings, and will be able to see both women and men here for primary and urgent care, as well as the management of some chronic conditions. Our care offerings for the kiddos is a little more limited, but will be listed on our website soon. Appointment availability will depend on payer credentialing status, as we work to get her in-network with all payers, so please call or message to ask if you would like to get on her schedule! https://www.genevawoodsbirthcenter.com/our-providers-and-staff

12/31/2024

The last baby has been born at Geneva Woods Birth Center, shortly after midnight on NYE, welcomed into the world by mom, dad, Barbara, Karin and Jen, just like some of the very first births here in 2002! Our hearts are so full from the wonderful experiences we’ve had with the-almost 2000 births here, and all the clients who have trusted us over the years. As our birth chapter closes, we look forward to the next chapter of continuing to support moms and families with lactation and postpartum care, and “midwifing” women through perimenopause, among lots of other services. Here’s to a great 2025 and beyond!

11/06/2024

Unfortunately, our phone lines are down due to a GCI hardware failure, and they might be down for another day or two. Please TEXT or call us at 907-365-9155 to reach office staff during the day. You can also write us through the contact form on our website, www.genevawoodsbirthcenter.com. Please note that outgoing calls are also not possible for us, so texting or emailing is the preferred method of communication for now. Established clients can also message us through their 'Maternity Neighborhood' charts.

Geneva Woods Birth Center is the #1 most recommended birth center by Alaskan health care providers. We provide compassionate, holistic and evidence-based care for all women.

08/01/2024

Save your money. Another example of shoddy research influencing consumers to use certain supplements.

01/02/2024

Looking for a New Years resolution. Try eliminating ultra-processed foods. Here's how.

Ultra-processed foods have been linked with a litany of health problems. Here’s a guide for identifying them.

12/11/2023

UpToDate is more reliable, but you would need a subscription. Dr Google is not that reliable.

Don't be fooled: PubMed doesn't guarantee good science!

Many people turn to PubMed for scientific information, but being listed there doesn't guarantee a paper's quality. Think of PubMed as the Google of life sciences research. It's vast and powerful, but like Google, it requires critical thinking to navigate.

While PubMed offers access to millions of valuable scientific papers, some of them are not credible. Simply being searchable via PubMed does NOT guarantee quality. Here are some examples:

🔎Retracted Papers: Andrew Wakefield's completely fraudulent MMR-autism paper, though retracted, remains listed.
🔎Predatory Journals: In the academic jungle, predatory journals prey on authors' desperation to publish. These low-quality journals publish anything for a fee, and some of their papers are listed on PubMed. (It is worth mentioning that, even within the realm of reputable journals, some require authors to pay an access fee, either as a mandatory open-access model or an optional path to wider dissemination.)
🔎Questionable Studies: Even quality journals can publish flawed research. While the peer-review process is a very useful and effective safeguard, it is not perfect.
🔎Bad science slips through the cracks: Journals like "Medical Hypotheses" publish speculative theories, including the completely unfounded claim that ej*******on cures a stuffy nose.

Another example is homeopathy. Despite thousands of PubMed listings, this pre-scientific practice lacks any good evidence to support the benefit of homeopathy except, occasionally, through the power of placebo. (We have tackled this topic MANY times—please check our searchable database: uspodsources.com for more!)

It takes skill to be able to critically appraise the validity and reliability of research—not all studies are created equal! So, the next time someone throws a PubMed paper at you, don't assume it's gospel.

One more thing: be wary of confirmation bias (i.e., the tendency to selectively seek out and interpret information in a way that confirms our pre-existing beliefs, while disregarding or undervaluing evidence that contradicts them).

Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6300231/
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/staffpubs/lo/TECH_V36_N4_JulAug16_Marill.pdf
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition-general-science/finding-paper-pubmed-does-not-mean-paper-any-good
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9500320/ (*retracted)
https://www.elsevier.com/journals/medical-hypotheses/0306-9877/guide-for-authors
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18723292/

12/11/2023

UptoDate is more reliable, but you need a subscription. Dr Google is not that reliable.

Don't be fooled: PubMed doesn't guarantee good science!

Many people turn to PubMed for scientific information, but being listed there doesn't guarantee a paper's quality. Think of PubMed as the Google of life sciences research. It's vast and powerful, but like Google, it requires critical thinking to navigate.

While PubMed offers access to millions of valuable scientific papers, some of them are not credible. Simply being searchable via PubMed does NOT guarantee quality. Here are some examples:

🔎Retracted Papers: Andrew Wakefield's completely fraudulent MMR-autism paper, though retracted, remains listed.
🔎Predatory Journals: In the academic jungle, predatory journals prey on authors' desperation to publish. These low-quality journals publish anything for a fee, and some of their papers are listed on PubMed. (It is worth mentioning that, even within the realm of reputable journals, some require authors to pay an access fee, either as a mandatory open-access model or an optional path to wider dissemination.)
🔎Questionable Studies: Even quality journals can publish flawed research. While the peer-review process is a very useful and effective safeguard, it is not perfect.
🔎Bad science slips through the cracks: Journals like "Medical Hypotheses" publish speculative theories, including the completely unfounded claim that ej*******on cures a stuffy nose.

Another example is homeopathy. Despite thousands of PubMed listings, this pre-scientific practice lacks any good evidence to support the benefit of homeopathy except, occasionally, through the power of placebo. (We have tackled this topic MANY times—please check our searchable database: uspodsources.com for more!)

It takes skill to be able to critically appraise the validity and reliability of research—not all studies are created equal! So, the next time someone throws a PubMed paper at you, don't assume it's gospel.

One more thing: be wary of confirmation bias (i.e., the tendency to selectively seek out and interpret information in a way that confirms our pre-existing beliefs, while disregarding or undervaluing evidence that contradicts them).

Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6300231/
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/staffpubs/lo/TECH_V36_N4_JulAug16_Marill.pdf
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition-general-science/finding-paper-pubmed-does-not-mean-paper-any-good
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9500320/ (*retracted)
https://www.elsevier.com/journals/medical-hypotheses/0306-9877/guide-for-authors
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18723292/

11/20/2023

11/20/2023

Finding balance is the goal and exercise, eating a healthy diet, getting enough sleep and de-stressing are the keys. Supplements to "boost" your immune system don't work. Ready why.

Dietary supplements claim to be able to ‘boost your immune system’ to combat disease. But attaining immune balance through a healthy lifestyle and vaccination is a safer bet to keep in good health.