Prenatal care

A doctor performs a prenatal exam.

Prenatal care, also known as antenatal care is a type of preventive healthcare with the goal of providing regular check-ups that allow doctors or midwives to treat and prevent potential health problems throughout the course of the pregnancy while promoting healthy lifestyles that benefit both mother and child. During check-ups, pregnant women will receive medical information over maternal physiological changes in pregnancy, biological changes, and prenatal nutrition including prenatal vitamins. Recommendations on management and healthy lifestyle changes are also made during regular check-ups. The availability of routine prenatal care has played a part in reducing maternal death rates and miscarriages as well as birth defects, low birth weight, neonatal infections and other preventable health problems.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that in 2015 around 830 women died every day from problems in pregnancy and childbirth. Only 5 of the women who died lived in high income countries, the rest of the women lived in low income countries.

The WHO recommends that pregnant women should all receive four antenatal visits to spot and treat problems and give immunisations. Although antenatal care is important for improving the health of the mother and baby, many women do not receive four visits.

There are many ways of changing health systems to help women access antenatal care such as new health policies, educating health workers and health service re-organisation3. Community interventions to help people change their behaviour can also play a part. Examples of these interventions are: media campaigns reaching many people, enabling communities to take control of their own health, informative-education-communication interventions or financial incentives. A review looking at these interventions found that one intervention helps improve the number of women receiving antenatal care. However interventions used together may reduce baby deaths in pregnancy and early life, lower numbers of low birth weight babies born and improve numbers of women receiving antenatal care.

Traditional prenatal care in high income countries generally consists of:

• monthly visits during the first two trimesters (from week 1–28)
• fortnightly visits from 28th week to 36th week of pregnancy
• weekly visits after 36th week until delivery (delivery at week 38–42)
• Assessment of parental needs and family dynamic

This traditional form of antenatal care has developed from the early 1900s and there is very little research to suggest it is the best way of giving antenatal care. Antenatal care can be costly and uses a lot of staff. The following paragraphs describe research looking at other forms of antenatal care which may reduce the burden on maternity services in all countries.

Reduced visits for low-risk women versus standard number of visits

There is not a lot of evidence behind the number of antenatal visits pregnant women receive and what care and information is given at each visit. It has been suggested that women who have low-risk pregnancies should have a less antenatal visits. However when this was tested, women with less visits had babies who were much more likely to be admitted to neonatal intensive care and stay there for longer (though this could down to chance results). 14% more babies died compared with those whose mothers had a standard number of visits. Women who had less antenatal visits were not as satisfied with the care they received compared with women who had the standard number of visits.

Group versus individual standard care

Group antenatal care has a couple of obvious benefits: it costs less than one-to-one visits and the women have more hours of care as a group than on their own. Only small studies have been conducted looking at group care but they have found that mothers’ knew more about pregnancy, birth and parenting in the group setting. The mothers reported liking the group care and the review found no difference between how the pregnancies developed between the group and individual setting.

Midwife-led continuity care versus other forms of care (shared care or Consultant-led)

Midwife-led care for low-risk women is where a midwife team (and GP if needed) is leading the care a woman receives and she does not usually see a specialist doctor in her pregnancy. Women with midwife-led pregnancies are more likely to give birth without being induced but have longer labours. However they are less likely to have their waters broken, an instrumental delivery, episiotomy or preterm birth. Around the same number of women in each group had a caesarean section.

Prenatal Examinations

Main articles: Prenatal diagnosis and prenatal screening

At the initial antenatal care visit and with the aid of a special booking checklist the pregnant women become classified into either normal risk or high risk.

In many countries, women are given a summary of their case notes including important background information about their pregnancy for example their medical history, growth charts and any scan reports. If the mother goes to a different hospital for care or to give birth the summary of her case notes can be used by the midwives and doctors until her hospital notes arrive.

A review looking into women keeping their own case notes shows they have more risk of having a caesarean section. However the women reported feeling more in control having their notes and would like to have them again in future pregnancies. 25% of women reported their hospital notes were lost in hospital though none of the women forgot to take their own notes to any appointments.

Prenatal diagnosis or prenatal screening (note that "Prenatal Diagnosis" and "Prenatal Screening" refer to two different types of tests) is testing for diseases or conditions in a fetus or embryo before it is born. Obstetricians and midwives have the ability to monitor mother's health and prenatal development during pregnancy through series of regular check-ups.

Physical examinations generally consist of:

• Collection of (mother's) medical history
• Checking (mother's) blood pressure
• (Mother's) height and weight
• Pelvic exam
• Doppler fetal heart rate monitoring
• (Mother's) blood and urine tests
• Discussion with caregiver

In some countries, such as the UK, the symphysial fundal height (SFH) is measured as part of antenatal appointments from 25 weeks gestation. (The SFH is measured from the woman’s pubic bone to the top of the uterus). A review into this practice found only one piece of research so there is not enough evidence to say whether measuring the SFH helps to detect small or large babies. As measuring the SFH is not costly and is used in many places, the review recommends carrying on this practice.

Growth charts are a way of detecting small babies by the measuring the SFH. There are two types of growth chart:

1. Population based chart which shows a standard growth and size for each baby
2. Customized growth chart which is worked out by looking at the mother’s height and weight, and the weights of their previous babies.

A review looking into which of these charts detected small babies found that there is no good quality research to show which is best. More research is needed before the customized growth charts are recommended because they cost more money and take more time for the health care workers to make.

Ultrasound Obstetric ultrasounds are most commonly performed during the second trimester at approximately week 20. Ultrasounds are considered relatively safe and have been used for over 35 years for monitoring pregnancy. Among other things, ultrasounds are used to:

• Diagnose pregnancy (uncommon)
• Check for multiple fetuses
• Assess possible risks to the mother (e.g., miscarriage, blighted ovum, ectopic pregnancy, or a molar pregnancy condition)
• Check for fetal malformation (e.g., club foot, spina bifida, cleft palate, clenched fists)
• Determine if an intrauterine growth retardation condition exists
• Note the development of fetal body parts (e.g., heart, brain, liver, stomach, skull, other bones)
• Check the amniotic fluid and umbilical cord for possible problems
• Determine due date (based on measurements and relative developmental progress)

Generally an ultrasound is ordered whenever an abnormality is suspected or along a schedule similar to the following:

• 7 weeks — confirm pregnancy, ensure that it's neither molar or ectopic, determine due date
• 13–14 weeks (some areas) — evaluate the possibility of Down Syndrome
• 18–20 weeks — see the expanded list above
• 34 weeks (some areas) — evaluate size, verify placental position

A review looking at routine ultrasounds past 24 weeks found that there is no evidence to show any benefits to the mother or the baby.

Early scans mean that multiple pregnancies can be detected at an early stage of pregnancy and also gives more accurate due dates so that less women are induced who do not need to be.

Levels of feedback from the ultrasound can differ. High feedback is when the parents can see the screen and are given a detailed description of what they can see. Low feedback is when the findings are discussed at the end and the parents are given a picture of the ultrasound. The different ways of giving feedback affect how much the parents worry and the mother’s health behaviour although there is not enough evidence to make clear conclusions. In a small study, mothers receiving high feedback were more likely to stop smoking and drinking alcohol however the quality of the study is low and more research is needed to say for certain which type of feedback is better.

Women experiencing a complicated pregnancy may have a test called a Doppler ultrasound to look at the blood flow to their unborn baby. This is performed to detect signs that the baby is not getting a normal blood flow and therefore is ‘at risk’. A review looked at performing Doppler ultrasounds on all women even if they were at ‘low-risk’ of having complications. The review found that routine Doppler ultrasounds may have reduced preventable numbers of baby deaths but the evidence was not strong enough to recommend that they should be made routine for all pregnant women.

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In the United States

Main article: Prenatal care in the United States

Proper prenatal care affects all women of various social backgrounds. While availability of such services have considerable personal health and social benefits, socioeconomic problems prevent its universal adoption in both developing and developed nations, such as the US. Although women can benefit by utilizing prenatal care services, there exists various levels of health care accessibility between different demographics throughout the United States.

See also

• Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition

Further reading

• Fiscella K (March 1995). "Does Prenatal Care Improve Birth Outcomes? A Critical Review". Obstetrics & Gynecology. 85 (3): 468–479. doi:10.1016/0029-7844(94)00408-6. PMID 7862395.
• Sheiner E, Hallak M, Twizer I, Mazor M, Katz M, Shoham-Vardi I (September 2001). "Lack of prenatal care in two different societies living in the same region and sharing the same medical facilities". J Obstet Gynaecol. 21 (5): 453–8. doi:10.1080/01443610120071974. PMID 12521796.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Howard M, Sellors JW, Jang D, et al. (January 2003). "Regional distribution of antibodies to herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and HSV-2 in men and women in Ontario, Canada". J. Clin. Microbiol. 41 (1): 84–9. doi:10.1128/JCM.41.1.84-89.2003. PMC 149555. PMID 12517830.
• "Prenatal Care - FAQs". Womenshealth.gov. April 2006. Archived from the original on 24 Oct 2008.

External links

• Obstetric Ultrasound
• Pregnancy Education
• CDC US prenatal care statistics
• EngenderHealth-Prenatal Care and Planning
• Care and Planning
• Every Woman California