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First baby - antenatal care
Hi All
the half way mark is now in sight and its starting to feel real now, i am i high risk pregnancy so do not have a midwife just have my male consultant! i had my first appointment at 6 weeks, was given a bounty pack and apart from what i have read in books and watched on TV (which is very little) i havent been given any information at all with regards to what to expect when having a baby,
is everyone had this with their first baby?
i feel really un-informed about what to expect, I am usually ok and quite open minded about it all however for some reason last night i watched the Midwives and since then started to feel really scared about birth, and just my pregnancy in general
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Replies
It's still early, I didn't get info from the midwives last time really but I didn't ask either as I'd read so much. Is it worth investigating antenatal classes?
Well we are within a couple of days of each other and I am clueless too! I've not really been told anything at any of my appointments. I was approached at the hospital by a woman who runs classes but when I told her how far I was she said she'd talk to me much later down the line.
Classes sounds like a great idea. I definitely need to get to classes next time around. Your GP surgery should be able to put you in touch with the local organisations dealing with these, and NCT do them too.
Those midwife programmes (I finally watched 2!) are designed to provide entertainment and drama, I know it's real life but lots of things will be edited out as not exciting enough, so please try not to set too much store by those types of things.
Real life birth stories would be helpful perhaps? There's plenty of those around, and maybe bloggers with babies?
Most of my early information was from books, didn't have internet even when I was pregnant with B and then further along I got lots of info from Hitched BT
)
I am 28 weeks and my mw still hasn't gone through birth plan, feeding etc, this will happen at 34 weeks apparently. Seems late but she has been very good at answering anything I need to know.
Ante-natal classes are great, the nhs ones are very informative but also worth checking out the NCT ones.
...and in the spirit of getting the board moving, ask everything on here!
)
I haven't really had much information given to me from my Midwife at appointments. In fairness, she always asks me if I have any questions but has never offered any advice voluntarily.
I've just had my NCT classes and they were more useful, maybe investigate them? They won't be until later on in your pregnancy though. In the meantime, I read a lot of books to help me feel prepared and there's always Mumdrum to ask questions of
If programmes like the Midwives are making you panicky, avoid them until you feel a bit better prepared x
With my first, I had no information.
Didn't find out I was pg until I was 16 weeks, and had him at 27 weeks, so missed all the classes anyway.
I don't think you talk about the birth until much later, I haven't really discussed it with my midwife yet!
i refused to see my community mw last time as she was useless so was seen by consultant (was also high risk so should have had some appts with him anyway but just seen him for everything)
first time rounds, i found around 28/32 weeks they started talking about birth options etc
theres still plenty of time
i booked on my ante natal classes with L at 34 weeks
The only info I got about birth was at ante natal classes. (I did nhs ones not NCT)
The midwife always answered any questions I had but never offered info.
I think much later ( maybe about 34 weeks) she went through a little checklist in my notes of a birth plan. It was very brief though- did I want the vitamin k injection, did I want the injection to speed up delivering placenta rather than waiting for it to come naturally, can't remember what else but very little.
I googled birth plans to give me an idea of what other people wrote, then I used them as ideas/a template to type up my own to give to the MW when I was in labour.
I asked my mw yesterday when we start talking about birth options etc and she said they don't do that anymore. I suspect this might just our area. Her reason was that she isn't allowed enough time to go into detail with everyone so you are meant to get information from antenatal classes, books and a visit to the hospital. At the booking in appt, she gave us details of local classes as well as the NCT so it's really in our hands.
I did NCT classes also NHS (well I did one of the nhs classes) My community midwife experience was less than ideal she forgot to tell me how to book the NHS class and provided no info about birth etc however NCT was fab and the NHS class I went to while very fyull was deafinately useful if you couldn't get to/ don't want to pay for NCT. Also worth googeling birth preparation claases etc in your area to gain more information.