Baby Making

In general terms, prenatal care refers to the medical care given to women prior to and during pregnancy. Prenatal care is recommended, although not widely available to all. It is believed that routine prenatal care has played a part in the reduction of maternal deaths and miscarriages as well as low birth weight problems, birth defects and other preventable infant problems worldwide. Prenatal care is aimed at detecting potential problems early on or if possible preventing them through recommendations of adequate nutrition, diet and lifestyle changes. It is also useful in directing couples to appropriate specialists and hospitals to help achieve conception or in maintaining a healthy pregnancy.

Prenatal care consists of monthly visits in weeks 1 to 28 (first two trimesters), followed by biweekly visits in weeks 28 to 36 and weekly from week 36 to delivery. The first visit requires the pregnant mother to undergo a physical examination. It involves collection or updating of the mother's medical history and noting of recent changes to maternal condition. Mother's height and weight will be taken and blood and urine tests are done. However routine monthly examination usually requires only blood pressure, weight and urine tests to be repeated. Unless presented with a medical reason, a pelvic exam and ultrasound are usually not required until the 2^nd trimester.

Ultrasounds are most commonly done at approximately 20 weeks and are considered safe, having been used for over 3 decades to monitor pregnancies. Among the use of ultrasound is to check for fetus well-being and determine whether the pregnancy is a single or multiple pregnancies. Fetal monitoring includes checking for development of fetal body parts and organs, fetal malformation such as spina bifida, cleft palate and more. Apart from that, checking the levels of amniotic fluid and umbilical cord for any possible problems is quite common. An assessment of possible maternal-related risks such as blighted ovum, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage and molar pregnancy may be done through ultrasounds. The determination of due date based on measurements and relative developmental progress is also one use of the ultrasound.

Practitioners, unless an abnormality is suspected, would order ultrasounds along the following schedule:

• At seven weeks to confirm pregnancy and maybe determine due date
• At 13-12 weeks to evaluate (if any) possibility of Down Syndrome
• 18-20 weeks to make the necessary assessment as expanded above
• 34 weeks to evaluate the fetal size and to confirm position of the placenta