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Heart Health

Women's Heart Health

Keeping your heart healthy requires a combination of smart lifestyle choices and great medical care. At Baptist Health, we are here to help ensure you have both. Our cardiovascular team educates women about heart disease prevention. We also conduct regular screenings and tests and offer a variety of treatments for many heart conditions.

Why Choose Baptist Health for Women's Heart Health Care?

At Baptist Health, we know that women’s heart health needs special care. Our experts apply the latest knowledge about women and heart disease to give all of our patients the best treatment possible. When you come to Baptist Health for heart health care, you can expect:

  • A commitment to woman-specific care: Although heart disease is just as common in women as in men, their symptoms and risk factors can be different. We use the latest evidence-based medicine to treat the specific heart health needs of women.
  • Focus on prevention: Many Baptist Health locations host annual women’s heart health programs, such as Ladies in Red, to promote awareness and educate women on prevention and risk factors for heart disease.
  • Expert staff: Our cardiology team includes specialists with decades of experience in women's heart health. Many of our physicians are also actively involved in cardiac research in an effort to provide the most up-to-date level of care.
  • Top care for women's heart attacks: Two of our locations, Baptist Health Lexington and Baptist Health Louisville, are recognized by the American Heart Association as premier heart attack centers in the state, a designation that ensures the highest level of care. 
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♪ At Baptist Health Floyd, we've started the Women's Heart Center and we're really excited to bring this care to the population in Southern Indiana. Women are affected at higher rates when it comes to heart disease, and it's a leading cause of mortality in women. It's higher than breast cancer and lung cancer combined. It's very under-recognized in women because of their atypical symptoms, which can include just extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, palpitations, or anxiety.

Not the classic crushing chest pain, which has been described. Although some women do still have that. We've also seen that women who have pregnancy-related cardiac issues go on to have a higher risk for cardiovascular disease. This includes gestational hypertension and gestational diabetes.

So we are working closely with our obstetrics colleagues to identify these women and make sure that they get the care so that we can focus on risk factor modification and prevention to prevent further cardiovascular events in the future. I'm the first female cardiologist at Baptist Health Floyd, and I'm thrilled about this opportunity to have started this program for this population. I think it's a great program to fill a big void in this area, and I'm really excited about the opportunity and the progress that's being made here at Baptist. ♪ [music]

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Women’s Heart Health Conditions We Treat

At Baptist Health, we treat a wide range of women's heart health conditions, including:

  • Coronary artery or vascular disease
  • Heart failure
  • Heart attack
  • Heart rhythm disorders

Women's Heart Health Treatments and Services

At Baptist Health, we provide patients with a full range of services for women's heart health care. These include:

  • Education and prevention: We offer regular women's heart health screenings as well as education on how lifestyle changes can help prevent heart disease.
  • Accurate diagnosis: Our heart care team uses the most up-to-date screening tests and technologies to diagnose heart disease even in its earliest, most treatable stages.
  • Latest technology and techniques for treatment: Our highly skilled team of cardiovascular surgeons is able to perform many lifesaving surgeries using minimally invasive techniques. Baptist Health is one of only two heart care groups in Kentucky performing radial artery catheterization – a newer, less invasive technique for opening blockages in blood vessels.
  • Comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation: We design personalized programs to help you recover after a heart attack or heart surgery and prevent future complications.

Facts About Women’s Heart Health

There are important facts about women’s heart health that even the most health-conscious person may not know. Contrary to what some may believe, heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, making it of the utmost importance to know the facts. Facts about women’s heart health include but are not limited to:

  • Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, and takes more lives a year than breast cancer and lung cancer combined
  • A higher percentage of women will die within a year of having a heart attack than men
  • Often, women’s symptoms of a heart attack are atypical and can look like gastrointestinal upset, jaw pain, shoulder pain, pain in the upper back, or extreme fatigue
  • Diabetes is a risk factor for heart disease
  • Women who had gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy are at a greater risk for heart disease
  • Young women (under 55) can have heart disease and experience heart attacks
  • Smoking increases your risk of heart attack

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