Preparing Your Daughter for Her First Pap Smear

The hormonal changes girls experience during puberty include growth spurts, growing breasts and body hair, skin changes, and hip widening. They also start their menstrual cycles, see changes in their reproductive organs, and may develop sexual interests and relationships.

If your daughter experiences these fundamental changes, you and she need to pay attention to her reproductive health to catch problems affecting her ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, cervix, and/or vagina.

Annual physical exams are a good way to keep on top of general medical problems, but at some point in early adulthood, your daughter needs to get a Pap smear to track issues unique to the cervix. If it’s her first time, here are some things you and her should know.

Parents in and around Mableton, Georgia, who need help getting their daughters set up with crucial medical screenings, such as Pap smears, can come to Dr. Temeka Johnson and her medical team at Quality Health Source.

Reasons to get a Pap smear

Also referred to as a Pap test, this exam primarily checks for cervical cancer. A medical professional scrapes tissue from the cervix to look for abnormal cells that could develop into this disease. 

Pap smears can also help confirm the presence of other conditions, including cervical dysplasia, human papillomavirus (HPV), yeast infections, bacterial overgrowth, and trichomoniasis. 

As with most diseases, early detection is key to successful treatment.

Timeframe for screening visits

Since cervical cancer is the biggest concern for this test, your daughter won’t have to undergo a Pap smear until she’s 21; the cancer risk is low until then. After age 21, her testing timeline may look like this:

Up to age 29

After her first exam, she should undergo this test every three years, unless we find abnormal cells or other issues warrant more frequent testing.

Ages 30-65

The three-year timeframe essentially holds if she’s just getting Pap smears and things are normal. However, if she gets a Pap smear along with an HPV test, and the readings show no abnormalities, she can schedule testing every five years.

What to expect

At your daughter’s examination, we ask her to lie back on a table, knees up, and place her legs in stirrups. We use a device (speculum) to hold the vagina open. 

Then, her provider scrapes off cells from the cervical mucus for testing. The sensation that this causes may feel like pinching, pressure, or period cramps. The test typically takes only a few minutes.

Going through this experience for the first time may seem awkward and strange. Having a conversation with your daughter about her first Pap smear may help her comfort levels. 

When the time is right for her Pap smear, make an appointment by phone or online with Dr. Johnson and the Quality Health Source team.