So I've been meaning to write about this for a while. I was thinking that some might think that since I am conducting my own pregnancy rather than passing it into the hands of NHS Midwives to deal with it all, that I might not be recieving any prenatal care. Far from it. In fact I actually regard what NHS midwives are paid to do to be no more than prenatal observation and testing. I know there are midwives out there who do provide true care, but unfortunately they seem rather scarce...
So just in case you were wondering, here's my schedule for my prenatal observation and testing...
Basically I don't have any of the triple tests etc that the NHS offer. My reasoning being that it doesn't help me to know any risk factor. This baby will not be aborted artificially for any reason, so there's really no point in having these tests, the results will purely cause stress, and are often inaccurate. Not to mention the risk of accidental miscarriage. So I don't allow anything like that to be done to us. Full stop end of the story.
I had the full round of blood tests done when I was pregnant the first time. Since I am totally monogomous in my relationship and know my husband is too, I see no reason to be re-tested for any sexually transmitted diseases. Or to find out my blood type AGAIN, I really doubt it's changed.... or my resistance to rubella, since I am immune.
The one blood test I may ask for from my GP is to see where my iron levels are at. I plan on putting a lot of effort into raising my iron levels towards the end of my pregnancy. Spatone is a good start... and I'm hoping to try some green smoothies too.
I've already been taking a good multivitamin, which my chiropracter suggested, since the way it is formulated makes the good stuff more bio-available and therefore it's actually absorbed by your body, rather than being passed out in your urine. I've also been taking fish oil with both omega 3 and 6. I plan on adding some probiotics to my diet and taking Grapefruit Seed Extract orally towards the end of the pregnancy.
The other things a midwive would do in the course of a normal pregnancy would be to perform urinalysis. This involves dipping a stick into your urine to check for certain things. As far as I'm aware the standard NHS test is for 5 things: glucose, protein, keytones, blood and pH. I've bought my own tests and I'm taking one every week... simply because there's 100 in a pack, and even if I used 2 a week over the course of a 44 week pregnancy, which I won't, I still won't have used them all. A midwife would do this at every appointment, which is generally once a month early on and then fortnightly/weekly at the 35 week point. I've researched what each test is a pointer towards... however I've only ever had one abnormal result this pregnancy... a slightly higher pH, which can be a sign of a UTI. I drank loads of water, and the next day it was fine, but I'm still taking precautions and attempting to drink as much as possible, which also means I wee a lot. urgh.
Last pregnancy I had a +++ result for glucose. In the end we figured out it was due to me having crunchy nut cornflakes an hour earlier. My test later that day was normal.
A midwive would also normally use a doppler to listen to the babys heartbeat. I've read things that make me a little unsure about having one used on us regularly, so I'm going to buy a fetal pinard stethoscope and listen for the heartbeat myself. The benefit of this is that I can do it whenever I like, and I can get to know the positions the baby likes to take up... one problem might be that I suspect I have an anterior placenta, meaning that it's positioned at the front of my uterus, near my belly button rather than my backbone. Not only does it mean I don't feel much of the early movement (which is why I suspect this) but the sound of the placenta will mask some of the heartbeat in the earlier weeks until the babys heart gets stronger, and louder.
Fundus measurement is also often used by midwives to guesstimate how far along you are and if the uterus is growing as it should. This is basically a measurement from the pelvic bone to the top of the fundus. The problem with this measurement is that it's fairly subjective. Different midwives will measure you slightly differently, causing issues since it might appear that you have grown more than you "should" or perhaps not at all. Also different women have different amounts of body fat over the fundus. It's not particularly accurate, so to be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Nice to know the fundus is growing, but not worth getting worried over. A nice measurement is that normally at around 20 weeks your fundus should reach your belly button.
Fetal positioning. I practiced doing this with both Eve and Willow. I was a lot better with Willow because I had a lot more time to lie down at home and try to visualise it, and I knew my body better and how things felt. Plus it was more important to me. There's a great resource called spinning babies online. Mainly when I was pregnant with Eve I used that for ideas to get her to turn anterior instead of posterior. It didn't work... lol. I don't think I was invested in the practice enough, I was a little lazy. I've heard lots of women give birth perfectly to babies in postitions deemed difficult by the medical profession. What I suspect is that this is possible to do when the mother is in tune with how her body feels and is free to move as she feels she needs to. Without external "suggestion".
Ultrasound. A lot of people worry when you say you don't want to have one of these... I guess there's a lot of reasons... there's a few articles I've read over the course of the last few years that make me feel they are less necessary and possibly more damaging than people seem to want to believe. I know we only really have the two scans in this country as long as things are progressing normally, but are they really necessary? Yes, it's nice to be able to see your baby, no, it's not necessary. I can wait. Any worries I might have had about an undiagnosed placenta praevia were quashed by that first article.
So for now, I'm perfectly happy continuing as we are. It's important to remember that I haven't opted out of anything. I just haven't opted into something that's not particularly necessary for us right now, and I find particularly stressful to have to deal with. If and when I see a benefit to opting into NHS care, then I will. I'm quite happy to take full responsibility for my own pregnancy and not farm it out to the NHS, who seem to think they own me and my choices. I am not a womb pod!!
So just in case you were wondering, here's my schedule for my prenatal observation and testing...
Basically I don't have any of the triple tests etc that the NHS offer. My reasoning being that it doesn't help me to know any risk factor. This baby will not be aborted artificially for any reason, so there's really no point in having these tests, the results will purely cause stress, and are often inaccurate. Not to mention the risk of accidental miscarriage. So I don't allow anything like that to be done to us. Full stop end of the story.
I had the full round of blood tests done when I was pregnant the first time. Since I am totally monogomous in my relationship and know my husband is too, I see no reason to be re-tested for any sexually transmitted diseases. Or to find out my blood type AGAIN, I really doubt it's changed.... or my resistance to rubella, since I am immune.
The one blood test I may ask for from my GP is to see where my iron levels are at. I plan on putting a lot of effort into raising my iron levels towards the end of my pregnancy. Spatone is a good start... and I'm hoping to try some green smoothies too.
I've already been taking a good multivitamin, which my chiropracter suggested, since the way it is formulated makes the good stuff more bio-available and therefore it's actually absorbed by your body, rather than being passed out in your urine. I've also been taking fish oil with both omega 3 and 6. I plan on adding some probiotics to my diet and taking Grapefruit Seed Extract orally towards the end of the pregnancy.
The other things a midwive would do in the course of a normal pregnancy would be to perform urinalysis. This involves dipping a stick into your urine to check for certain things. As far as I'm aware the standard NHS test is for 5 things: glucose, protein, keytones, blood and pH. I've bought my own tests and I'm taking one every week... simply because there's 100 in a pack, and even if I used 2 a week over the course of a 44 week pregnancy, which I won't, I still won't have used them all. A midwife would do this at every appointment, which is generally once a month early on and then fortnightly/weekly at the 35 week point. I've researched what each test is a pointer towards... however I've only ever had one abnormal result this pregnancy... a slightly higher pH, which can be a sign of a UTI. I drank loads of water, and the next day it was fine, but I'm still taking precautions and attempting to drink as much as possible, which also means I wee a lot. urgh.
Last pregnancy I had a +++ result for glucose. In the end we figured out it was due to me having crunchy nut cornflakes an hour earlier. My test later that day was normal.
A midwive would also normally use a doppler to listen to the babys heartbeat. I've read things that make me a little unsure about having one used on us regularly, so I'm going to buy a fetal pinard stethoscope and listen for the heartbeat myself. The benefit of this is that I can do it whenever I like, and I can get to know the positions the baby likes to take up... one problem might be that I suspect I have an anterior placenta, meaning that it's positioned at the front of my uterus, near my belly button rather than my backbone. Not only does it mean I don't feel much of the early movement (which is why I suspect this) but the sound of the placenta will mask some of the heartbeat in the earlier weeks until the babys heart gets stronger, and louder.
Fundus measurement is also often used by midwives to guesstimate how far along you are and if the uterus is growing as it should. This is basically a measurement from the pelvic bone to the top of the fundus. The problem with this measurement is that it's fairly subjective. Different midwives will measure you slightly differently, causing issues since it might appear that you have grown more than you "should" or perhaps not at all. Also different women have different amounts of body fat over the fundus. It's not particularly accurate, so to be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Nice to know the fundus is growing, but not worth getting worried over. A nice measurement is that normally at around 20 weeks your fundus should reach your belly button.
Fetal positioning. I practiced doing this with both Eve and Willow. I was a lot better with Willow because I had a lot more time to lie down at home and try to visualise it, and I knew my body better and how things felt. Plus it was more important to me. There's a great resource called spinning babies online. Mainly when I was pregnant with Eve I used that for ideas to get her to turn anterior instead of posterior. It didn't work... lol. I don't think I was invested in the practice enough, I was a little lazy. I've heard lots of women give birth perfectly to babies in postitions deemed difficult by the medical profession. What I suspect is that this is possible to do when the mother is in tune with how her body feels and is free to move as she feels she needs to. Without external "suggestion".
Ultrasound. A lot of people worry when you say you don't want to have one of these... I guess there's a lot of reasons... there's a few articles I've read over the course of the last few years that make me feel they are less necessary and possibly more damaging than people seem to want to believe. I know we only really have the two scans in this country as long as things are progressing normally, but are they really necessary? Yes, it's nice to be able to see your baby, no, it's not necessary. I can wait. Any worries I might have had about an undiagnosed placenta praevia were quashed by that first article.
So for now, I'm perfectly happy continuing as we are. It's important to remember that I haven't opted out of anything. I just haven't opted into something that's not particularly necessary for us right now, and I find particularly stressful to have to deal with. If and when I see a benefit to opting into NHS care, then I will. I'm quite happy to take full responsibility for my own pregnancy and not farm it out to the NHS, who seem to think they own me and my choices. I am not a womb pod!!
I think I saw my midwife 3 times in total during my pregnancy, and my GP twice maybe, when I was after some gaviscon usually! I just didn't see the point and they didn't seem bothered. I had the scans though, as you know, because I was totally paranoid I was going to miscarry. Making sure he was still there and the right size etc really helped me feel more relaxed in my pregnancy.
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