East Bay Women's Health: ISO recommendations

I had a routine pap visit with Dr. Stelling a couple years ago before I started trying to conceive. I found her very kind and approachable. I did not stay with the practice because I ended up using my PCP as my OBGYN (Dr. Janet Arnesty), but if I hadn't done so I would have been happy with Dr. Stelling. 

Hello!

I gave birth back in early May and honestly loved their clinic. The receptionists and nurses were all very kind and patient and helpful. I moved to California at 21 weeks and was in a bind to find a clinic and they were one of the few that was very quick to accept me as their patient.

Dr. Stelling and the nurses at Alta Bates Berkley were INCREDIBLE. I had to give birth on my own (partner was sick, no family in town b/c COVID) and I had the kindest and most compassionate nurses during my very long labor.

They also gave me very good care for the two days I stayed at the hospital. They keep the baby in the room with you- there’s no neonatal baby lamp area. Which is to allow the mother to bond with her baby. But the nurses would change the diapers and even swaddle and rock my baby to let me rest.

The only con was that I didn’t meet Dr. Stelling until my very last appointment at 38 weeks. It didn’t turn out to be a big deal for me in the end though. 

let me know if you have any other questions!

-Angela Rojas :) 

Hi, 

I wish I could give you a glowing review, because I know how tough it can be to find an OB that fits with your plan, etc. Unfortunately I had a really bad experience with Dr Stelling. I had to switch to her at 6mo pregnant (I moved) and by the end it was too late to switch again (and during covid). In short, she was very cold and not receptive to any of my questions, wishes or concerns. Every time I had an appointment with her she would flag something as concerning and send me off for testing, and it turned out to be nothing. I wasted so much time and anxiety on needless tests because of her. She pushed me to be induced early against my wishes (and with dubious evidence that it was necessary). During my labor, she was not physically present (until the end) but was calling the shots over the phone, and she instructed the nurses to go against my stated wishes multiple times. Basically, she seemed to care much more about her own schedule/preferences than about mine. My husband said she acted like a doctor who got sued a lot, in that she always assumed the worst and caused a lot of unnecessary panic rather than take the time to assess whether or not that was necessary. In the end, both my kid and I are healthy, so ultimately she did her job. But my experience of pregnancy and labor was really negatively impacted by having her in the picture (I had loved pregnancy and OB checkups before I switched to her). Friends told me nice stories about their experiences with OBs they trusted, and it sounded like such a different experience from mine - I'd recommend finding one you feel good about. I never met Dr Gentry, so she might be completely different. The nurses at that practice were all great. 

Hi there, I saw Dr. Stelling when I was pregnant with my first kid and although everything worked out fine in the end there were so many things that kept upsetting me over and over again that I decided to change provider when I got pregnant with my second child in October. I can just say that this was the best decision I could have made and I am so happy now! EBWH has extremely long waiting times (it might be different now during COVID though) - I often waited for an hour in the waiting room and then sometimes another half an hour in my gown after being called up. I also felt that I didn't get adequate information throughout my whole pregnancy and had to look everything up online or ask friends what their OB-GYN had told them (e.g. which activites, foods, meds to avoid.., things you would expect to be informed about). When I had some issues with postnatal anxiety and called the office multiple times because I was so desperate nobody would ever get back to me! Last but not least when I called them after I found out that I was pregnant again and that I was worried because I had some bleeding I was told Dr. Stelling would get back to me within two days but I had to wait for two WEEKS to receive a single voicemail. By then I had already found a new provider, had a first ultrasound and my first labwork done and all kinds of different follow-ups and tests scheduled as the new practice I found was so much more efficient and caring.
I am sure Dr. Stelling is a good doctor but they definitely have big issues with time management. Maybe I was just unlucky but I would personally not recommend EBWH!
(You can also check what people say on yelp about EBWH.)

Hello, I had my baby 2 years ago with Dr Gentry in Alta bates. During my pregnancy I did not see her many times, my controls were mainly with the nurses of her clinic. They were nice but the waiting time was incredible long, even when I was in my week  40. I had a really long delivery. They induced me, and after 2 days they sent me to C-section. Dr Gentry told me in the minute before (after 2 days of contractions!!!) "the head of the baby is too big". I think the situation could have been prevented it. An as a consequence of such a long delivery, I had a bit of fever so they gave me antibiotics iv for 3 days. Dr Gentry always answered my questions very kindly and explained me well, but I wish she was more involved.

Alta Bates nurses were really nice and helped me a lot. 

I hope you find this useful!

Good luck

I started out at this office with my current pregnancy and recently switched to Sutter Health (after getting recommendations about their doctors). My husband and I were initially very excited about this office, but unfortunately, my experience was similar to others and reflected some recent reviews on yelp. The wait times in the office were very long, and I found some of their system (how to get documentation, etc.) to be very outdated. We went back and forth on switching because I was looking forward to getting continuous care from one doctor — I have that at Sutter, but my delivery doctor is whoever is on-call. However, after a friend confirmed some of my own suspensions, and two doulas that I interviewed expressed the same concerns, I decided to switch offices.

For me, I am finding the office + doula to be the best formula for consistent and reliable care for delivering at Alta Bates. 

I've heard really great things about Dr. Gentry as a practicing OB and doctor, but unfortunately, I think the office and care that you get might not currently be reflective of her abilities. 

I agree with the other posts.  I would often wait more than an hour (longest wait was close to 2 hours) to see a doctor for a five-minute appointment.  This was the case pre-COVID.  Similar to other posts, I ended up switching to Sutter and have been much happier with the experience.      

I wanted to add that I was so surprised to see the practice's glowing rating on google maps which neither lined up with my (bad) experience nor with their very bad yelp reviews. But then I posted a negative review on maps a few weeks ago and was shocked to find out that they deleted it (which is illegal)! I just left another one and I am curious if they get rid of that one too. They must do this all the time as this explains the discrepancy between their yelp and google reviews...

Hi!

I delivered with Dr. Gentry back in May 2020. I can only speak to the very end of prenatal care and delivery with her because I was originally a patient at Stanford Healthcare across the street, but with all of their providers becoming pregnant at the beginning of the pandemic, they stopped providing delivery services just before I was due and I had to transfer at 33ish weeks or so. Their office was really great in allowing my partner to attend all prenatal visits, as this was not something Stanford was allowing at the time. For my first pregnancy, this was extremely stress reducing for both me and my partner. I can say that Dr. Gentry was very busy at the time because her practice took on as many of the Stanford patients as they could all at once and had to start turning away people due in the summer months because they were beyond capacity. That said, I never felt rushed during my visits and felt prepared for what delivery would look like at Alta Bates, even with the constantly changing protocol at the time. Dr. Gentry is very experienced with delivery and is highly regarded among her staff, that was clear to me during my visits. She was very supportive of my natural birth choice (as were the nurses at Atla Bates), which was important to me. She was spot on in estimating my delivery based on dilation and effacement at my visit, and was extremely verbally supportive during all my visits. I also received post-partum contraception from them and loved their Nurse Practitioner who provided the service. 

I am happy to speak more about delivery if you have more questions. 

I delivered with Dr. Gentry in November of 2019.  It is true that their offices are somewhat old and the wait times are long but the staff was really good and Dr. Gentry was great.  She delivered my baby and was totally on board with my birth preferences. I met with her several times throughout my pregnancy and she always answered my questions and made me feel like she was really listening and paying attention to me. 

I gave birth to my son in mid-July 2020 with Dr. Gentry as my OBGYN throughout pregnancy but Dr. Stelling delivered my baby so I have a pretty recent experience of Dr. Gentry and EBWH (starting in non-coved times and giving birth ~5 months in).   Dr. Gentry came highly recommended by a good friend who went through two more complicated pregnancies/deliveries with Gentry (one ended in miscarriage and one a complicated birth which ended in an emergency c-section after pushing).  Throughout my care, I saw Dr. Gentry every 3rd appointment and they kept in person appointments all throughout Covid.  I also appreciated that while they weren't allowing guests for most appointments due to Covid, they did allow spouses for the first appointment and the last several when working on a birth plan.  When not seeing Gentry, I saw the Nurse practitioners and I really liked each one I met, they were all very informative and spent as much time with me as needed. 

Dr. Gentry herself was more rushed and I often had to come prepared to make sure I got all my questions asked.  She's not super warm and fuzzy, but very direct and straight forward.  While I could have used a little more warm fuzzy for my first pregnancy, I really appreciated her straightforwardness and truly feel that if there had been complications she would have been one of the best Doctors to have. 

I found if I was seeing Gentry, I often had long wait times, but on the visits with the nurse practitioners, there was not too long of a wait.  I also really loved the women working at the front desk, they were very kind and remembered me on each visit.

During my delivery Gentry had just worked a long shift and so Stelling ended up delivering my baby.  I found Stelling to be great throughout the process, the doctor really just comes in at the end, so my interaction with her really was minimal.  The nurses I had at Alta Bates were what made my whole birth experience, I’m not sure how it differs during non-coved times, but one nurse stayed with me the whole time I was in labor and helped coach me through the whole process while talking truly great care of me during a couple of small complications that arose.

If I have future kids, I would go back to East Bay Women’s Health.