WHAT IS PRENATAL CARE?
Also known as antenatal care, prenatal care is a comprehensive preventive healthcare given to a pregnant woman during her course of pregnancy by an obstetrician or a midwife.
- Prenatal care allows doctors and midwives to identify and treat potential health problems early. This help to prevent complications during pregnancy.
- It also promotes healthy lifestyles that benefit both mother and child because having a healthy pregnancy is one of the best ways to promote a healthy child.
- Prenatal care is not just about regular checkups, it includes counseling about various aspects of pregnancy including maternal physiological changes in pregnancy, emotional and role changes, prenatal nutrition, physical activity as well as guidance about labor, birth, and parenting.
- Prenatal care has played a major role in reducing the frequency of maternal death, birth defects, low birth weight and miscarriages.
- According to the World Health Organization, pregnant women are recommended to receive four antenatal visits to identify, treat problems and give immunizations.
- The Guttmacher Institute estimates that about 40% of mothers who do not receive prenatal care lose their baby 28 days after delivery.
PRENATAL CHECKUPS
- The first prenatal appointment should be scheduled immediately a woman discovers that she is pregnant.
- Regular checkups are really important during pregnancy. They help the doctors to monitor the health of the mother and prenatal development during pregnancy
Most experts suggest you see your doctor:
- Once each month for weeks four through 28
- Twice a month for weeks 28 through 36
- Weekly for weeks 36 to the delivery
During your first visit, you can expect your doctors to ask about:
- Your health history including high blood pressure, diabetes, or past surgeries and hospitalization.
- Your family health history
- Your lifestyle. Do you smoke or drink?
It is important to be honest with your doctor
After which the doctor will now perform a full physical exam, take your blood and urine for lab test and calculate your due date.
The doctor might also carry out a breast exam, a cervical exam including a Pap test and a pelvic exam to check your uterus.
After this initial antenatal visit, you will be classified into normal risk or high risk.
High-risk pregnancies are those with a greater chance of complications. Women with high-risk pregnancies need to see their doctors more often. The following factors may increase the risk of problems during pregnancy:
- Overweight or underweight
- Very young age or older than 35
- Complications in previous pregnancies
- Health conditions such as diabetes, HIV, cancer, and autoimmune disorders before pregnancy
A subsequent visit to your doctor will include checking the baby’s heart rate, your blood pressure, weight and measuring your abdomen to check the baby’s growth.
MONITORING YOUR BABY’S ACTIVITY
After 28 weeks you can keep track of your baby’s movement by using the fetal movement counting approach. The purpose is to reduce mortality by alerting caregivers and getting appropriate intervention when the baby might be in the distress.
This will help the expecting mother if the baby is moving less than normal and an easy way to do it is the count-to-10-approach.
This is done in the evening when the fetus tends to be more active. The baby’s movement is counted.
Most women count 10 movements within 20 minutes if you count less than 10 movements in 2 hours the doctor should be alerted immediately.