Research Preconceptional care, Please Help :)

[MariaSM]

I am a Student midwife currently doing an essay about preconceptual care and antenatal care. I would be interested to find out if couples or women get advice from midwives about preconceptual care and if there is enough of it? Also If you would you like more advice from midwives during the preconceptual period? It is just a bit of research for my essay and it would really help me out - I wont include any names or personal information.
Thanks

Not got any help - and didn't know you could!

You don't see a midwife until you are already pregnant, so how are they going to advise on 'preconceptual care' (whatever that is)?

I didn't get any preconceptual care, and I would assume that I'd have to ask for it to get it.

I'd also assume that it would be my GP I would contact about any questions I had preconceptually (is that a word??), possibly the Practice Nurse as it's her I see about contraception. I wouldn't expect midwives to be involved in this.

Then I suppose you get into the territory of assisted conception/help with fertility issues if the "preconception period" keeps dragging on. Not sure if this is what you're asking about though, and no experience of this either.

Hypothetically, I can't imagine contacting a preconception service if one existed. I did read up on folic acid etc on the Internet and that was enough for me.

No, was never an option really. I was really interested in preconceptual care and spent a long time planning ahead. I did my own research though and would have felt like a nuisance asking a midwife (or even a practice nurse) for help or advice when it's so readily available on the internet or in books. Happy to help if you need it though

Decaf xx

thanks for your comments, i thought the same but we need to discuss about preconceptual care with midwives, however, all of your answers have been really helpful and it supports what i have written that there is little or no advice from midwives during the conception period, Mostly from GPs!

Thanks again everyone! xx

This might be too late Maria, but I'm in Belgium, and attending the fertility clinic at a university hospital. Every appointment I've had I have been seen by a midwife, and if we get as far as needing assistance then the team of midwives will lead this.

It seems a great system - you are automatically seen by a midwife before seeing the doctor, and the midwife takes down all relevant information and then hands over a condensed file to the doctor before they come in to see you. They answer any questions, and from what I can see are valued just as much as the doctors and professors there.
The doctor is only in with you for a short time, and therefore I suppose they have more time to get on with research, which this hospital seems to be well known for.

Hope that helps! Good luck with the essay

There's a midwife available at drop-in sessions at two sure start centres close to me that I know of, I haven't been to them for pre-conceptual advice but did consider it and still might if I'm not lucky in another couple of months. I don't think many people would think of midwives for this type of care - books, websites, and GP if things aren't going well I guess.

Like everyone else no advice from midwives prior to conception - or even early in pregnancy, it's all GP's. I would never think of trying to see a midwife prior to conception - even after conception they only ring you at about 9-10 weeks, all the care before that (arranging scans if problems etc) is done by GP's.

I have to say, midwives and antenatal care are so stretched in many areas that if I was pregnant I'd be pretty pissed off to find it was being stretched even further by pre-pregnant women wanting advice on how much folic acid to take and whether they should have a glass of wine with dinner.

Obviously if you are needing care for other reasons (eg fertility problems) then you should get the advice you need, but for normal healthy women then surely its common sense or easy to find out with a quick google.

Thank you everyone for all your help!