Antenatal Care

Once your pregnancy is confirmed you should book an appointment with the community midwife via this surgery. You will then receive information regarding 1st booking appointment, 1st scan and information about screening tests which you can normally collect from the surgery a few days later.

It is important that you take folic acid vitamin supplements (400 mcg daily) from the start of pregnancy, and ideally as soon as you decide you wish to conceive.
 

Postnatal Care

When you and your baby come home from hospital, postnatal care will be provided by your community midwife who may visit you for up 28 days following confinement to provide postnatal care.

Frequencies of visits are determined by the mother’s need.

You are invited to the surgery in the following few days after delivery/arrival home. The idea of this visit is to ensure your general well being and to briefly examine the baby. If you can contact the surgery after your arrival back home after the delivery and let the reception know the circumstances, they will generally arrange to book you in after the end of normal surgery so that the waiting room is fairly empty

At 6 weeks you should have a post natal examination. This is usually the final check to confirm that the uterus is shrinking back to its normal size as expected. Traditionally at this time we offered a smear to all women. Current advice however is that this only needs to be offered to those women who would routinely be due at this time (or in the previous few months and was delayed due to the pregnancy.) We tend to delay this smear until approx 12 weeks after the delivery to ensure a minimal amount of false abnormal reading due to the after effects of the womb still shrinking down to normal size.

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