Relocating - should I get a copy of my medical records from hospital or just take my orange Maternity book?

[AliceDontKnow2014]

Hi All,

I'm relocating to South Africa shortly (next week), and want to take as much of my medical information with me as possible, to hand over to my new obgyn. I'm 21 weeks pregnant and the baby is going to be born abroad. I've had my 12 weeks and 20 weeks scans at St Thomas' hospital and I'm wondering about what information they send you when you request a copy of your medical notes...is it different/more detailed to what is in your orange maternity book? Just trying to work out if it's worth requesting my records or just take copies of my orange book with me...

Any ideas?

thanks!

Oh Alice I don't know the answer to your question but I have questions for you!

Where are you moving to? What will you do about giving birth, do you know what the private and public options are? We are probably moving to South Africa next year & are also trying to conceive so there is a chance of moving to SA pregnant…

Actually not sure if this really answers your question but when I moved cities during my pregnancy with DC2 I just took along my handheld notes, I didn't request anything extra from the hospital. I had another booking appointment at the new hospital though where they took bloods etc, asked about family history, no further scans though. I would expect that your new care provider would do the same.

I moved from Oz to UK when 14 weeks pregnant with DC2. I do remember getting additional notes before I left, in particular a detailed computer print out of all tests, including blood and urine tests, with their results. Gave the hospital in the UK something to compared with when they did my booking in appointment.

Unless you are a high risk pregnancy then don't worry too much. Copies of bloods are nice, but they may choose to repeat because they can. As long as anomaly scan and nt(if you did it) were normal then again just saying they have been done will be fine. Enjoy the move. Plenty to keep you busy!

I moved to asia 6 months pregnant and took all my notes. My me handed them over to me at my last appointment in the UK. Was a second, straightforward pregnancy but had an amnio due to higher than usual risk of downs. Would rather have full history of test results etc for a new doctor and much easier to get them before you leave than have to get someone to send them once you're there IMHO.

MW, not me.

I moved overseas at 24 weeks and saw my consultant before I left - she wrote a letter addressing the complications in my pregnancy (and previous pregnancies as she'd delivered my previous baby and had a good understanding of the issues with my first). Otherwise the notes covered everything like the blood tests etc. They had additional tests they wanted to do when I got here but would have done those anyway!

Sorry - guess what I was trying to say is if the scans didn't show any complications I don't think you will need any more than what is in the notes (like your blood group etc). I'm sure in South Africa they will continue doing the relevant tests for things that might be important eg iron levels which are issues that might arise in later pregnancy.