What does prenatal care include?

Prenatal care is a comprehensive care that focuses on the health of pregnant mothers and fetuses from confirmation of pregnancy to before delivery. It includes standardized prenatal examinations and disease intervention at the hospital, as well as daily life guidance and psychological support. It is not the stereotype that "just do B-ultrasound on time" will be enough.

Last month, I met a pregnant mother who was 26 weeks pregnant with her second child. She didn’t pay much attention to nursing during the first pregnancy. She gained more than 50 kilograms during the entire pregnancy. She finally suffered a lot because of the retrograde tumour. As soon as she was pregnant with this baby, she came to us and asked us how to adjust. We calculated her pre-pregnancy BMI and set a weekly weight gain of no more than 0.4 kilograms. We also helped her adjust her diet. When she went to check last week, all indicators were stable, and she said that she was much more relaxed than when she was with her first baby.

Don’t think that going to the hospital for a prenatal check-up is just a procedure. In addition to checking the size of the fetus and fetal heartbeat, each prenatal check-up also needs to follow up on the mother’s basic physical condition. For example, pregnant mothers with hypothyroidism and chronic hypertension must check relevant indicators and adjust the dosage of medicine every time they come. Check-ups for key nodes such as TCM, ovarian cancer, and glucose tolerance must also be done according to the gestational age. If problems are detected early, many risks can be avoided in advance. Oh, by the way, recently many pregnant mothers will ask whether to do the expensive non-invasive PLUS and whether to store umbilical cord blood. There is actually no unified answer to such questions. For high-risk groups with family genetic history, we will recommend more comprehensive genetic screening. For ordinary low-risk pregnant mothers, routine basic examinations are enough, and the same goes for umbilical cord blood. Those with a history of blood diseases in the family can consider self-storage. Ordinary families can donate to public blood banks to help more people. There is really no need to be led away by marketing anxiety.

In addition to these things in the hospital, daily life guidance is also a very important part. It is not just a slogan of "rest more and stay up less late". For example, for a pregnant mother with edema in the third trimester, we will teach her to put her feet 15 cm high at home and wear loose elastic stockings. We will also teach the father-to-be how to massage to relieve soreness and swelling.； For pregnant mothers with abnormal fetal position, we will also teach specific adjustments. As long as the physical condition allows, it is okay to take a walk or do some gentle pregnancy yoga. On the contrary, it can help reduce the pain of subsequent natural births.

There are also many people who ignore psychological care. In the first two weeks, there was a girl who was 35 weeks pregnant. She read content about childbirth accidents every day. She was so anxious that she had insomnia all night long. She went to the emergency room in the middle of the night when the fetal movement was slightly more or less. We accompanied her to count fetal movements for three days, explained to her the normal range of fetal movements, and also invited her to join a group of pregnant mothers of the same gestational age. Everyone usually chatted about the delivery package and complained about pregnancy reactions. Within a week, she said that she slept much better.

To be honest, prenatal care is to put it bluntly, it is a safety net for pregnant mothers and babies. It is nothing special. It just pays attention to everything from pregnancy to birth, and helps everyone go through the entire pregnancy smoothly.