Overview

Family Planning Services

Northwestern Medicine OB/GYN specialists provide comprehensive family planning and contraception care and educational resources. The family planning specialists throughout Northwestern Medicine deliver the most current medical expertise with compassionate, personalized attention. Our team is dedicated to listening and responding to each patient’s individual needs.

Northwestern Medicine Family Planning and Contraception

Northwestern Medicine Center for Complex Family Planning and Contraception (FPC) is a comprehensive subspecialty program within Northwestern Memorial Hospital that is committed to providing women with personalized care of the highest quality. FPC provides comprehensive family planning care including complex contraception consultation, laparoscopic and hysteroscopy sterilization procedures, and pregnancy terminations in the first and second trimesters.

The providers at FPC are OB/GYN specialists* with specific expertise and training in all aspects of family planning and contraceptive care. Our faculty, fellows and staff members conduct a wide variety of clinical and basic science research projects to ensure we are giving you the best possible care and treatment when providing consultation or conducting procedures. Our team offers a variety of clinical services, including:

  • Complex contraception clinic: The complex contraception clinic offers consultations for patients whose medical issues or intolerance of birth control methods make contraception a challenge.
  • Primary contraception services: We provide all modern methods of contraception, including:
    • Oral contraceptive pills, NuvaRing™, Ortho Evra™ patch
    • Depo-Provera injections
    • Nexplanon™ contraceptive implant
    • Intrauterine devices including ParaGard™ and Mirena™
    • Sterilization procedures
    • Laparoscopic tubal ligation
    • Hysteroscopic sterilization or Essure™ implant
  • Pregnancy options counseling: Couples faced with abnormal or unexpected pregnancies often need information on pregnancy options. FPC provides comprehensive counseling in such cases.
  • Pregnancy termination: FPC offers surgical and medical pregnancy choice options through 24 weeks of pregnancy. A majority of the second trimester patients throughout Northwestern Medicine confront severely troubled pregnancies due to maternal illness or fetal anomalies.
    • First trimester pregnancy termination using Mifepristone/Misoprostol
    • First trimester surgical abortion
    • Second trimester dilation and evacuation
    • Second trimester induction of labor
  • Management of miscarriage: We provide treatment of first and second trimester miscarriage by surgery or medication.

Education at Northwestern Family Planning and Contraception

Northwestern Medicine Family Planning and Contraception hosts two of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine's academic programs:

Ryan Program in Family Planning and Contraception

The Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program is a specialized curriculum devoted to teaching residents the most up-to-date, evidence-based practices in family planning and contraception.

Consistent with the ACGME Program Requirements for Residency Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology, our faculty strives to optimize family planning and contraception training for our residents. Third-year residents participate in a combined family planning and reproductive genetics rotation, during which they gain experience in complex contraceptive management, surgical sterilization procedures, genetic counseling and abortion care, including management of abortion complications.

Fellowship in Complex Family Planning

Fellowships in family planning train physician-leaders in family planning research, education and clinical practice. During the two-year program fellows receive extensive training in all aspects of contraception and abortion care.

They also receive mentoring in clinical and epidemiologic research, perform an international field experience and connect with an expanding network of national family planning experts. All of Northwestern's fellows have completed an approved residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology prior to their fellowship.

Most complete a master's degree in Public Health during the course of the fellowship program as well as a research thesis in family planning. Since its inception in 2002, Northwestern's fellowship graduates have gone on to lead other fellowship and residency family planning programs at major U.S. and European academic medical centers and to work for organizations such as the World Health Organization.

Meet the Teams

Our multidisciplinary teams provide exceptional services to women of all ages and are dedicated to listening and responding to each patient’s individual needs.
Locations & Contact Information
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    In the spirit of keeping you well-informed, some of the physician(s) and/or individual(s) identified are neither agents nor employees of Northwestern Memorial HealthCare or any of its affiliate organizations. They have selected our facilities as places where they want to treat and care for their private patients.