Pregnancy and Prenatal Care
Prenatal Care is the health care you obtain while pregnant and is essential to ensure the well being of you and your unborn child. Besides medical care, prenatal care consists of education on pregnancy, childbirth, counseling and support.
Frequent visits to your health care giver helps you to follow the development of your baby and give you the possible opportunity to ask questions. You and your health care giver have a lot to discuss! You may prefer to involve your partner in the appointment as well.
The minute a woman discovers that she is pregnant, she should begin a schedule of prenatal care with her physician for the entire period of the pregnancy. For normal pregnancies with no major problems, the care usually consists of a planned series of visits to health specialists, with the visits happening monthly early in the pregnancy and weekly in the last month of pregnancy.
This schedule can change depending on your own medical situation and the preference of your physician. Further prenatal care can be required if there are any preexisting medical conditions like diabetic issues present in the mother and/or if problems occur while carrying the baby to term.
The reason for the prenatal visit is to:
Establish your due date
Learn about your health history
Explore the medical history of relatives
Find out if you have any pregnancy risk factors based on your age, health and/or personal and family history.
Ideally, prenatal care should begin before you become pregnant. If you are planning a pregnancy, see your health care giver for a comprehensive checkup. He or she can perform routine testing to make sure you are in good health and that you do not have any illness or other conditions which may influence your pregnancy. If you have been experiencing any strange symptoms, this is an excellent time to report them.
If you are already being treated for a chronic condition, such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension, allergies, inflammatory problem that can affect several body systems, depression, or some other condition, you should talk to your health care provider about how it can affect your pregnancy. In several cases, you might want to adjust or get rid of medications mainly during the first trimester (12 weeks) to minimize risk to the unborn baby.
Prenatal care helps to keep you and your baby healthy. Babies of mothers who do not get prenatal care tend to be more prone to have low birth weight as well as die than those delivered to mothers who received care. Prenatal care is a vital part of a healthy pregnancy and is the key to checking your well being and the health of your baby all through the pregnancy.
A number of health care experts can help expectant women and deliver their babies. Women who see a health care giver often while pregnant have healthier babies, are less prone to deliver prematurely or have other major problems connected to pregnancy. Doctors also can talk to pregnant women about things they can do to offer their unborn babies a healthy start to life. caregiver jobs toronto
