Medical care in pregnancy

[Thistledew]

My friend is about 2 months pregnant with her second child.

She has had some bad experiences with the medical profession and so has taken a very pro-active approach to her and her family's health through the choices they make as to nutrition, exercise and lifestyle. This seems to work for them as they have not had cause to register with a GP in the 3 years since they moved to where they are now living.

I know that she would not terminate for abnormalities and is not concerned to know the gender before birth. She would like to hire an independent midwife for a home birth and has the support of her mother, who has had 6 children herself.

I know that she would not refuse medical treatment if there were any problems, but providing she has a straightforward pregnancy, is there any need for her to register with a GP?

I would be interested to hear opinions from people who have had low or no medical intervention pregnancies themselves.

No need for gp here as you self refer to mw. However theyll want to know who gp is.
Also if you need tests like gtt or swine flu jab then you'll need a gp so you can see a nurse.

Tbh gp is not necessary but probably needed in name only for making everything run smoothly.

GP totally unnecessary for care but as OP said, they will ask for GP details. I only saw GP to register my preg. Hope she gets good midwifery care and has a healthy pregnancy.

You often don't need to see a GP for care during during pregnancy, but you would almost certainly need one for NHS admin and for all other primary care for herself and idc her child.

I wouldn't have thought she would need to register with a GP for a pregnancy...although she might get a few strange looks LOL. If she needs any tests that the ind. mw can't perform then I'm sure she will be able to arrange them at the local hospital. If she wanted to accept the seasonal flu jab then she could do so privately (or at Tesco's - they seem to have more avialble than the GPS LOL). GTT is usually done at the local hospital afaiaa. Certainly mine do the test on the diabetic unit.

See our mw does nothing more than wee tests, blood samples and chit chat.
Gtt done at gp surgery
Flu jab - think you need dr note to get from tesco etc as I doubt they'd risk jabbing a pregnant woman without instruction from someone more qualified IYSWIM.

I'd register with gp- you don't have to visit one after all.
Oh and someone needs to do your 6week post natal check up. Mw and hv won't do it.

If she had any major problems and needed to call a gp at some point, would need to be registered, would make life easier. As op said, just cos she is registered with one, doesn't mean she has to go and see them, unless she absolutely needs one :)

Does she even need to register with a midwife?

If she doesn't register with a midwife at all, she would find it difficult to access any antenatal care. I think that would be imprudent (it is a major factor in poor outcomes). At the very least she needs basic obs done, and a scan to establish such things as placenta praevia could be life-saving.

Yep, scans aren't just about deciding to terminate babies or not. I'd have lost DC2 had a scan not picked up my incompetent cervix - and I'd had DC1 at almost full term so it was completely unexpected. Not to mention other medical complications, plus sometimes scans pick up things that show baby needs special care immediately upon birth e.g. heart defects. And the whole detected of pre-eclampsia from wee checks not to mention possible issues with blood checks. Every pregnancy is different - low risk in the past does not mean low risk in the future.

If I was going to do the absolute bare minimum I would still do the anomaly scan and have my blood taken and maybe check blood pressure, wee sticks etc myself.

I think it really depends on the local setup as to whether you can see a midwife without first registering with a GP - you would have to round here for instance and there would be no way you could get scans.