What To Expect During Prenatal Visit

Scheduling for prenatal visit with your midwife or doctor is one important thing you should do as soon as you know you're pregnant. That way, you can start getting prenatal care properly.

First Prenatal Visit - What To Expect

Whether you're seeing a midwife or a doctor, your first prenatal appointment is likely to be the longest prenatal appointment. Usually the first prenatal check up is scheduled when you're approximately 8 week pregnant unless you have had problems in the past, or are having problems at the moment.

These are the list of things your health practitioner would like to know during the first prenatal visit:

• Your menstrual cycle history. This is important to assess your reproductive well-being, as well as, to estimate your delivery date.
• Your and your family health history, including genetic and birth defect history.
• Your activities, habits,and living condition, so that your caregiver can determine whether you have condition which can affect your safety and emotional well-being.
• The medication or supplement you've taken since your last menstrual period to assess whether you've ingested potentially harmful substance.

Once your caregiver interviews you, the caregiver will give you advice of what you should or shouldn't do to take care of yourself during your pregnancy. S/he may ask you to get some vitamin and mineral supplement to support your and your baby well-being. If you have a midwife as your caregiver, you'll find that she will emphasize a lot on this aspect; a midwife is likely to give you a long talk on nutrition and how to take care of yourself properly to avoid pregnancy and childbirth problem in the future.

In addition, during the first prenatal visit, your caregiver will ask you to sign the necessary paperwork to continue on the care with him/her. Your caregiver will also perform standard physical examination including measurement of the fundal height (i.e. the stomach), blood pressure, heart pulse, and your weight during the first prenatal visit. Depending on your caregiver, you may also be asked to confirm your pregnancy other than using the home pregnancy test.

Subsequent Prenatal Appointment - What To Expect

Depending on your risk factor, your caregiver will determine the number of prenatal appointment you need to make. If you are a normal healthy woman with a low-risk pregnancy, you will see your caregiver once a month until you're 30 week pregnant. After 30 weeks, you will have to see your caregiver every two weeks. Then, one month before your due date (approximately 36 weeks), you'll see your caregiver every week.

During the subsequent prenatal check-up, your caregiver will perform the standard physical examination like the ones performed during the first prenatal visit, measure the baby's heartbeat with a doppler and may ask for certain prenatal testing to be done. Additionally, your caregiver may test your urine on every visit to quickly check on the level of sugar and protein in your urine.

The duty of a health provider during prenatal appointment is not only to look after the pregnant women physically, but also to ensure the emotional well-being of the pregnant mother. Unfortunately, this is an area which is often overlooked. A physician generally simply does not have enough time to sit and talk heart-to-heart with the pregnant mother to find out whether there is something in her life troubling her. A physician usually only has time for brief physical examination, ask you about your health concern, and give you brochures on pregnancy and birth.

In contrast, the midwifery model of care is strikingly different.

Granted, a midwife wouldn't do anything differently from what a physician would have done in terms of physical examination. However, a midwife has time to "do" beyond physical examination.

She can have a heart-to-heart talk with you over a cup of tea or maybe a massage during your prenatal check-up. She takes time to educate you about pregnancy including teaching you about nutrition and exercises you need to do, things you should avoid and how to basically to look after yourself during pregnancy.

Basically, she treats you like an important person, not just patient number one, two, etc. It is not surprising that midwives earn trust and have bond with their clients in the process. We tend to be comfortable with somebody we really trust. In birthing situation, the trust and bond between the caregiver and the pregnant mom is even more important, since the secure feeling helps moms to relax and labor. Therefore, to have a birth with somebody you trust really helps.

If you hire a midwife, you'll find that you long for your prenatal check-up, which is in contrast to most women I know. Yes, most women dread the prenatal visit because of the long queue and short 'check-up time'. In fact, many women feel that they often feel rushed during their prenatal visit. Yet, prenatal visit is important if you're pregnant.

If you hire a midwife, you will not have to queue. To begin with, a midwife often offers to visit the client's home, so there's no queue here. Alternatively, even if she suggests you to visit her home for a prenatal visit, you'll likely the only client she sees for that particular day. So you won't have to wait.

And the prenatal appointment itself is nice and long. You won't feel like you're having a prenatal appointment. Instead, you may feel like you're visiting a long-time friend. Therefore, consider to have a midwife to look after you during your pregnancy and birth.

*NOTE: Do you want to get more tips and techniques for having natural birth? Then subscribe to our FREE monthly newsletter, "Born Naturally" and receive a FREE "Pregnancy Diet Secret" ebook.

Click here to subscribe and claim your FREE bonus ebook which will change your 'pregnancy life'

Child birth preparation articles:

• Child birth preparation - tips for preparing your natural birth.
• Finding and choosing good childbirth classes
• Natural child birth video - why you should watch it and what to watch
• Tips on how to choose good pregnancy books

ADD TO YOUR SOCIAL BOOKMARKS: Blink Del.icio.us Digg
Furl Google Simpy Spurl Technorati Y! MyWeb