Monroe Pediatrics Inc / Andrea V. Hill MD

06/06/2026

Just want to let everyone know that someone has been trying to hack into our Facebook account and delete the office page. There are also reports of someone commenting as us.

So you know, I do not comment on other pages as monroe pediatrics and I do not message anyone unless I am returning a message from a patient. Since the hacking attempt came in via messenger, I have turned off messaging for the next couple months, until I’m sure things have resolved.

You can still contact me by calling the office.

Also, if anyone receives any messages, comments or calls from us that sound suspicious, please screenshot any information you find and bring it to the office if possible.

Thank you so much for trusting us, helping us with this and for being with us on the roller coaster that is the journey through life.

Dr Hill

06/06/2026

Did anyone see Freya in the office this week? She is super sweet and loves to snuggle. And won’t leave me alone when I’m at work 😂. Say hi if you see her next week.

06/05/2026

06/05/2026

How you feed your children is all up to you.

I feel like when I was young, I was a bratty know it all. The things I believed I saw in black and white. I remember being such a die hard breast feeding advocate when I had my first daughter at 21 that I kind of looked down on moms who didn’t breastfeed.

It was so easy breastfeeding my first daughter. My milk flowed in and she didn’t give me any trouble. Until it was time to wean her.

But then I couldn’t get her to stop breastfeeding. She was a year and a half and ripping buttons off my clothes in airports. I made the bad decision to wean her cold turkey. I sent her to her grandmother’s house for 3 weeks to break her of breastfeeding.

There was a huge problem with this. I had my medical school biochemistry final at end of those 3 weeks. I thought it made sense to send her to her grandmothers so I could study and quit breastfeeding at the same time. Maybe that was a mistake.

I got engorged and my hormones got completely messed up. I suffered a 3 week migraine. I couldn’t even drive back and forth from school many times because with my migraines I couldn’t see sometimes.

I called my doctor mom (the other grandmother) crying and afraid that I might die in my sleep or something - the headaches were so bad.

Biochemistry was my most difficult class in medical school. You had to get a 50% on the final exam to pass the class - no matter what your cumulative grade was. And, 50% was really hard to make on that final exam. It was a brutal test.

I remember laying on my living room floor crying and crying thinking I was going to fail out of medical school because I couldn’t study for my final exam. My migraines were just so so bad.

When I called my mom she brought me to her house. She gave me a quiet room upstairs and just opened the door to check on me a few times a day and to bring me food.

I passed that exam with a 52% on the final exam. Barely passed It.

So with my second daughter I learned my lesson. I breast fed her yes. But her personality was totally different. She was walking at 7 months old. She wanted adult food. She was precocious. And I gave her formula when she needed it. I stopped being so judgemental about breastfeeding. And she self weaned all by herself. No drama. No stress.

My third baby experience was my granddaughter. My older daughter was struggling to breastfeed and feeling like a failure if she didn’t do it. She suffered depression and anxiety, in part because of her low breast milk production and having to pump every 2 hours at work so she wouldn’t dry up. She was relieved when at 9 months I told her to stop breastfeeding. I told her that breastfeeding wasn’t worth the loss of sleep and the mood issues it was causing her. She changed to formula and it changed her life for the better.

I like seeing my progression on this. Over a 30 year period. I like seeing my judgmental self righteous self evolve into a more understanding and sympathetic human being.

Breastfeeding is something I see as an area of judgement for women. Women judge other women. Women judge themselves. Really we should all just encourage moms to do what’s right for them and support them in their decisions.

And we shouldn’t judge each other, we should strive to be supportive.

What made me write this today? I had a brief thought of that day, lying on my living room floor, breasts engorged, migraine killing me, crying and feeling like my life would be ruined if I didn’t pass that biochem exam. I thought about what that taught me, how I evolved from it and how this lesson can be applied to so many things in my life.

I thought of how I learned compassion and tolerance from all of this.. and how I learned that I can still pass that biochem exam.. even when I think all is lost - I don’t fail tests.

Breastfeed, don’t breastfeed. Do what’s right for you. We are all just moms trying to do our best. ❤️

*my early walker and self weaner made this video this week. Maybe I should have breastfed longer 🤣🤣🤣(although she speaks 3 languages so maybe the little bit of breast milk did some good 😵‍💫- we never really know though - do we?).
Dr Hill

06/04/2026

🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

Looking to CHOP the boredom out of summer? Then sign your kids up for Martial Arts Camp! This incredible program starts next week and will help build confidence while having fun! KICK Monotony away by registering here: https://gapiedmontymca.org/summer-sport-camps-brad-akins

Comment HI-YA if you love martial arts!

06/02/2026

I don’t know what you all did this weekend, but I got certified as a Bare Knuckle Boxing physician instructor this weekend.

Crazy for a pediatrician you might think, but Bare Knuckle Boxing has the lowest rate of brain injuries out of the combat sport events I work. And, as someone who lost her husband to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and Su***de, I think less brain injuries is something I can get behind.

Fun weekend with the Association of Ringside Physicians. Ask me about my weekend when you see me in the office 🤣

Dr Hill

05/31/2026

Today I was thinking about something. I had a medical meeting this weekend and as someone who helped put on the event, I had to fill out financial disclosures.

Whenever doctors give medical talks at medical meetings where continuing education credits are offered, we have to disclose if we get money from any pharmaceutical companies or other medical companies because if you receive money from them, it can bias your speeches/talks.

I have a mountain cabin. Some people might think I have a vacation home because I got rich as a doctor. But, the truth is. Bayer pharmaceuticals helped pay for my cabin.

And not the way you might think.

I sued them.

Most doctors understand complaints many people have about pharmaceutical companies… their fears about big pharma and distrust. But, we learn to study research and data with a critical eye that those outside medicine often don’t have. We tend to accept the flaws in our medical pharmaceutical industries and see it as a necessary evil in progress.

I actually have a little bit different opinion. When I was 18, I started birth control pills. But a little while after starting them, I began to get migraines where half of my body went numb. When I saw a neurologist, he patted me on the head and told me that I was going to be a doctor, a mother and a wife and that those were 3 full time jobs and I needed to learn to deal with stress. (Even at 18 I wondered if he would have said this to a man and got quite angry).

He didn’t mention the birth control pills at all. I stopped taking them myself. And I never went on them again - until I was in my 30s. At that time Bayer came out with a birth control pill that was supposed to be lower in estrogen. It was praised as a breakthrough for women. My OBGYN and I decided I should try it and just stop if if my migraines got worse.

A few short months later after starting then, I almost died. Blood clots formed in my legs and broke off to my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. In the ICU that first night I was so sure I was going to die that a lawyer friend came into the icu to make a will for me and the nurses witnessed it.

A week later or so, I relaxed and realized I was going to live and I went on with life. Lungs a bit scarred. A little more easily short of breath. And a little more afraid of dying.

Lawyers reached out to me asking me to sue Bayer. I refused for several years. I didn’t want to be someone who sued anyone. I was a doctor after all. We don’t sue people right?

Until one day when I learned that the FDA and Bayer knew that their product had an increased risk for blood clots. And, I found out that 5 members of the FDA group that voted NOT to let patients know about this increased risk had financial ties to Bayer Pharmaceuticals. They received money from Bayer.

The conversation I imagined made me feel sick. You see, when you have a history of blood clots or a blood clotting disorder, oftentimes you need to take an aspirin every day for the rest of your life. And since Bayer has the most well known aspirin.. I couldn’t help but think it was a win win for them in their mind.

Now, when I fill out those financial disclosures for a medical conference I take them very seriously. And when I go to my cabin to find mental peace, I am reminded of the time I thought I was going to die, and how it taught me to savor sunrises like this one.

I understand our medical system is far from perfect. And I think there are many lessons in this story of mine. The biggest is how money and politics damage medicine.

This weekend, as other times when I have filled out financial disclosures for medical lectures, I am proud to say that this cabin is the only time I have ever received money from a drug company.

Medications have changed our lives. But I don’t think doctors should be influenced, or the FDA, or politicians by the dollar. Politicians interfere too much with science. Big pharma can be a blessing and a curse. Doctors need to rise above them both, in my opinion.

Just my thoughts and today’s truth telling.
🤗🤗Dr Hill

Dr Andrea Hill is the founder of Monroe Pediatrics and mom to two daughters.

05/30/2026

05/25/2026

Swimming lessons are so so important for your kids. Lack of good and plentiful swim programs in Walton county was the main reason I helped bring the YMCA to our county.
Check out their swim lessons for your kids this summer!!!

Knowing how to swim should be considered an important life skill, not something special or just for some children.

The AAP recommends swim lessons as a layer of protection against drowning. Many kids will be ready to start lessons at age one. Here are a few things to keep in mind while choosing a program:

1. Are the instructors trained and certified through a nationally recognized learn-to-swim curriculum? Are there lifeguards on duty who have current CPR and First Aid certifications?

2. Do they teach good safety habits in, on and near water?

3. Do they teach your child what to do if they end up in the water unexpectedly?

4. Do they offer adapted aquatics for children with special health needs and developmental disabilities?

Learn more: https://bit.ly/2QgLe7M

05/24/2026

I think about resilience a lot. Some psychologists think that the increase in anxiety in children we are seeing is a result of lack of resilience training.

Many children lack resilience due to something we thought we were doing right as parents - fixing their problems for them and focusing on keeping them happy.

But, adversity is actually needed to develop resilience.

I’m really good at problem solving. I used to say that when I solve a problem I don’t fish with a fishing pole, I throw a net. I can think about every issue involved in a problem and tackle them all quickly and effectively. So, with my older daughter - I solved a lot of her problems for her. I didn’t help her by doing this even though I thought I did.

With my younger daughter, I struggled with the balancing act of this. I overcorrected.

She was bullied and I kept trying to help her problem solve by herself and solve it. However, the other girl ultimately gave my daughter a concussion, from which she suffered symptoms for months.

Not only did she have the physical symptoms of concussion, knowing that her father had chronic traumatic encephalopathy from too many hits to the head as a fighter - and that because of this he died by su***de, she had extreme emotional fear of the consequences of a concussion that many children wouldn’t have ever experienced. She worried about her brain and cried for months saying her brain was damaged. We went through a lot together because of this concussion.

I learned then, reading more about bullies and what to do as a parent, that we must step in quickly as parents when it comes to bullies.

I messed that one up big time.

But, we don’t have to step back from bullies to teach resilience to our children. We can teach resilience by not over helping with homework. Not over helping with normal friend issues. Not helicopter parenting.

I have always been grateful for my resilience in life, even though hard things happened to me as a child to build it.

As an adult, I have had some horrible things happen to me and I always come out on the other side asking myself, “What can I learn from this? What can I improve going forward to make sure this doesn’t happen to me again?” I want my daughters to be able to do that without suffering too much learning it along the way.

My younger daughter is definitely becoming an amazingly resilient girl, and I learned better how to deal with a bully the hard way through our experience. But just thinking about resilience reminds me how hard it is to be a parent. And, how even I mess up - and I’m supposed to be an expert on parenting. Sadly I don’t think anyone is a true expert. We just do our best.

Think about how you can help build resilience in your child. And remember that your job isn’t just to keep your child “happy”.

Just my thoughts this Sunday.

*it’s also good to have fun with them too.. like my spring break trip to Disney this year. We just have to balance it all. So tough.

Dr Hill