Why do so few MW seem to know that when measuring blood pressure in pregnant women with high BMI you need to use a big cuff to avoid inaccurately high readings?
It makes a real difference to the care received by pregnant women with high BMI, and could end in unnecessary early induction for non-existent "pre-eclampsia".
Inductions are correlated with worse health outcomes for mother and baby than spontaneous birth, so surely this is a measurement it is vital to get right?
In my pregnancy, every MW needed to be informed of this and reminded each time to get the big cuff. Many of them tried to convince me just to use the normal one. The one time I reluctantly agreed, my bp read as elevated. I then insisted they get the big cuff to check, hey presto my bp was perfectly normal again!
So how come this happens MW's? Don't they teach you this?
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Get updates on how your baby develops, your body changes, and what you can expect during each week of your pregnancy by signing up to the Mumsnet Pregnancy Newsletters.
Pregnancy
Question for all midwives...
52 replies
dizietsma · 13/06/2009 02:04
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.