First antenatal apt 6 weeks away!

And the nhs guidance about seeing as early as possible, means get booked in for your 10 week check and make sure it's at 10 weeks.

So don't try and book it a couple of days beforehand.

You are doing exactly what the guidelines want you to do

This is because you’ve never had a booking appointment. They are around 1 hour 30 mins. A GP appointment is typically 10 mins. So that would be the equivalent of 9 GP appointments, and suddenly that’s not comparable at all is it?

@Teaandcake90 You misunderstand me - if you went into the practice (as soon as you found out) to make the booking in appointment (for 10-12 weeks) you were handed the leaflet about nutrition, so got it early as possible.

As people don’t tend to go in anymore they put that information online where it is very easily available.

Sadly this is exactly it, around 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage before 12 weeks. That means they’d be doing 25% more booking appointments at say 4/5 weeks pregnant for pregnancies which would end in miscarriage.

Around 50-65% of those early miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities and so no advice or vitamins or lifestyle changes would be able to alter the outcome.

It’s sad but it is a fact. Once you are 8/10 weeks the risk of miscarriage drops, and it drops significantly once you have a healthy 12 week scan.

No it isn’t. The reality is lots of women have miscarriages early on. I’ve had 4 mc and I wouldn’t want to keep being asked for early booking appointments. They take lots of information and do blood tests etc. I honestly think many of the most vulnerable and deprived women with unexpected pregnancies are the least likely people who would access very early booking appointments, for a variety of reasons.

When you booked your first appointment did you not get an email with links and attached leaflets? I do believe I got this.

The as soon as possible point is the 10 week booking appointment point. Before there were at home testing kits the earliest that someone was really sure they were pregnant was after two missed periods.

10 weeks is really early and is exactly when you should be seen.

Congratulations and good luck

Well, apart from anything else, the booking-in appointment is much longer than the average 10-minute GP visit. You get tests, do BMI, give blood and urine, test for syphilis, HIV, Hep B etc. and have a lot of questions, including ones about DV, FGM, your general MH and physical health, family health history etc etc. My memory is that mine lasted about an hour. For another, it's not a one-off appointment. You're then in the system for 12-week and 20-week scans, 9 more appointments, and obvious birth arrangements. It's far more resource-heavy than a GP appointment about a minor ailment.

It’s really not - loads of people who would be seen at say, 6-8 weeks, wouldn’t then be seen at 12 weeks, because they’ll have had a miscarriage.

It would be more appointments. How many pregnancies are lost before 8 weeks?? All those are appointment spaces.

They offer a lot more appointments and tests in America because it's all chargeable.

If you hadn't had much contact with health services previously it may feel a surprise. However maternity services physically cannot give an appointment to every single woman who has a positive pregnancy test. It's difficult enough to get support or advice when miscarrying.

Folic acid is most important in the very first few weeks, before a lot of women even know they are pregnant. An appointment at 8 weeks pregnant wouldn't change this.

4 pregnancies over the course of the last 18 years and I have never seen a midwife before 10 weeks. It's standard practice. Wait until your next pregnancy when they don't want to see you at all between 12 and 26 weeks! That was a shocker!

You don’t need to search high and low and read hundreds of academic articles. When you register your pregnancy if you call up to register they should signpost you to the NHS page and links, and typically mention starting folic acid if you aren’t taking it already.

If you register your pregnancy online then there are links on those pages with that same information.

You’re really not giving people enough credit here. You don’t need to be university educated, middle class, a high earner or a genius to look on the NHS website (which you’d be on if you were searching on how to register a pregnancy) and all of the information you need is right there in one easy to find place.

It’s not unreasonable at all for hospitals to expect people to take that very simple step prior to the booking appointment.

I imagine the number of women who don't know these things, but do know they're pregnant very early and will listen to a midwife is miniscule.

But your experience in working in social care is, I think, skewing your expectations in the opposite direction. Bluntly, the NHS can't afford to start antenatal care of everyone very early, or right from the moment someone discovers they're pregnant, in order to scoop up a minority of non-coping or vulnerable women from disadvantaged backgrounds who may neasily be able to access healthcare information.

10 weeks is pretty standard where I am. Its got later and later every pregnancy I have had.

2017 - booking appointment was 6 weeks (no information bar last period date was needed pre appointment - all done through the doctors)
2020 - booking appointment was 8 weeks (little information - last period date, were you trying or surprise, dad's details, number pregnancy etc) Done via a call to the midwife team
2021/2 - booking appointment was 10 weeks (rather a lot of information on the post referral email was needed - pretty much filling in the notes booklet before you got to the appointment). Done via an email to the central team then they sent a link to fill out everything.

I have always pointed you to look at the NHS information about folic acid and what not to do/eat etc from the referral contact though. Whether that be from the initial call or a email back.
Covid really changed the way midwife care was given where I am and although the initial booking appointment is later, the information give at first contact is huge now. The email I had after my 2022 baby had more information than I knew what to do with.

It is true, sadly.

They used to do an earlier appointment, but it turned out to be rather wasteful, as a lot of the pregnancies didn't proceed.

Statistically, your chances of something going wrong drop the closer to 12 weeks you get, and then continue to drop afterwards. The screening tests need to be done at 12 weeks, so they scan you then. They do your first midwife appointment anywhere between 10 - 12 weeks in most places, a couple do 8 weeks. They ask you to self-refer earlier so that they can manage wait lists and reduce the chances of people missing the window for screening, should they want it.

It might be worth looking up the "usual' contact during pregnancy, I don't know anyone who wasn't quite surprised by how hands-off the NHS is. You'll probably see a midwife at 10 weeks, and then at around 16 weeks, and then 24 and 32 weeks. You'll then see them weekly from 39 weeks until you give birth, usually. You have two scans, 12 and 20 weeks, unless you need growth scans later on.

For second pregnancies, you're seen even less.

They do leave the rest to you - the midwife will tell you about folic acid at 10 weeks, but they do expect you to know about vitamins/caffeine/alcohol etc, or to look it up.

This. It sounds awful but it’s true. I went to A&E for bleeding at 6 weeks (the day I found out!) and was sent to the EPAU the next day for an early scan. All was fine but they basically sent me away saying while all is ok now, if anything does happen there’s not much they can do this early anyway. I asked if I needed to see my midwife sooner than my booking in and again they said no it would make no difference. My pregnancy was unplanned so I wasn’t taking any folic acid, pre-natal vitamins etc so I basically walked into a pharmacy and said “what do I need to take?”. I avoided caffeine and alcohol as obviously knew not to have those, didn’t smoke anyway, but other foods I had a quick Google and a lot of it was common sense (no rare steaks, raw fish etc).

Congratulations and good luck OP!

8-10 weeks is normal for the booking in appointment. Unless you have specific concerns or complications. There's really not much to do before then anyway. Lots of pregnancies sadly end in the first few weeks. You don't really need a midwife to tell you to take vitamins and not drink do you?

It’s quite normal. There’s not really anything to be done in the early days. You’re very much in nature’s hands and tbh even later in pregnancy and child birth nature is definitely in the driving seat

All info is on the NHS website and it’s the opposite in terms of time. I don’t want to see people until 10 weeks so they don’t see people who will go on to have miscarriages.