What will the doctor do at this 1st appt? Why can't I just go to midwife?

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I rang my go surgery to ask about making an appt with the midwife, this will be first medical appt associated with pregnancy as I am only just 6 weeks.

The lady said you have to go to the doctor who will then book an appt with midwife. What will happen at this appt? I don't like the unexpected and usually avoid the gp if I can!

Congratulations!
It's a pain, isn't it? I had to do the same thing. She checked my blood pressure and went through my history. I got my notes card and a urine sample bottle. That was it.

The doctor might ask you something like "is this pregnancy a problem for you?" to establish why you're there. Ask if you've done a pregnancy test, calculate due date based on your last period. Maybe give you the NHS pregnancy/baby book.

You'll be in and out in two minutes.

for my first pregnancy I had to see the GP first, he just asked me the date of my last period, calculated my due date and told me to book an appointment with the midwife at reception.

This time around I'm at a different surgery and went straight to the midwife

good luck

Every area has a different process.

For my first pg, I saw the doctor and the only thing that he did was write the referral to the MWs and briefly outline the birth options under that PCT.

For pg2 I had moved areas. I again saw the GP, who made the referral to the MWs but this time I also had my weight and BP checked and had to answer a few general health questions.

All very straight forward both times. Neither GP repeated a pregnancy test (just asked for the date of my last period) and, other than the brief checks for my second pg, there was no examination either.

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

If it's anything like here the GP will say congrats, give you a bit of advice and tell you where you can give birth/have your mw appointments. You don't have to choose there and then (although we'd already looked into it and so could say where we wanted referring to) GP will refer you to a mw.

MW will call and book a 'booking' appointment. You go to that and they will go through all your medical history plus the father of the baby's history. They take some bloods and urine (I think the did urine anyway, I've peed in a pot so many times that they all blur into one) Then they give you a bit of advice on eating, exercise, breastfeeding etc and give you your medical folder with firm words to take it to all appointments. They might also book in your 12 week scan, although we had to wait for a letter from hospital as we're at a MLU. Think all in all it took about an hour and a half.

in my area, you go straight to the MW without even seeing the gp.
in fact, the receptionist at the gp's was remarkably unhelpful (as if i should have known without her telling me, when all the guides say "make an appt with your GP")

Cool, so no examinations?

My GP:

checked weight
took blood pressure
calculated due date based on last period
asked me which hospital I wanted to be referred to
told me about the dos and don'ts (i.e. what not to eat, smoking, drinking etc, healthy food, folic acid)
referred me to my chosen hospital for booking appt with midwives

that was about it.

My gp just gave me some folic acid

The only examination I ever had during pregnancy was during labour

My GP asked date of last mp, was pg planned (i.e. do you want to continue with the pg), do I have enough folic acid - and that was it. Apparently he now refers me to the midwives and they write to me with an appointment. Seemed like a waste of time but apparently that's the way it's done round here.

Where I am you can't just go and see the midwife first because the GP gets paid for referring you to the midwife. It's quite a significant sum, a few hundred £. Just for taking your bp, asking if you feel ok and dictating a short letter.

It's no wonder the nhs is skint with stuff like this going on.

When we found out I was pregnant, we immediately made a GP appointment cos I thought that's what you're supposed to do. The GP didn't know why we were there as we should have made a midwife appointment and she pretty much just congratulated us. I even asked had she any leaflets or anything (as I was completely clueless) and she just replied 'no' . I think she checked my blood pressure and told me to take vitamins and to make the midwife appointment with reception and that was pretty much it.

There will be no internal exams at all until you go into labour. If, for any reason, they need to, I'm sure they'll give you plenty of notice but otherwise they stay away from you.

I had to go see the gp before the midwife when i moved into the area last time at 20 weeks. He just sat me down, looked at his notes and went "it says here you're a miss, are you in a relationship?" then asked why I had "waited until I was 34" and then asked if it had taken a long time when we started trying! DH said afterwards I should have said "about 4minutes" but I was just speechless at the random questions.

So.it was a big old waste of time really.

With first I went to doctor and she said congrats and gave me a phone number for midwife.
With second I just rang the midwife direct

No gp appointments here , phoned docs the asked me to go and fill in sone forms and pick up some things to do with mw, also with the number for the childrens centre to book with mw. They also told me to come back the next afternoon to pick up my folic acid perscription all of this from the receptionist. Receptionist at childrens centre also booked app for mw, asking if I had a preference for a certain mw.

I thought I had to go to the GP first so called to do that, but in our surgery it's straight to the MW. However at that appointment all they do is fill out a quick form, ask you where you want to give birth (as the maternity unit in our town shut a few years ago so its an even split between the two other nearest ones and they have different ante-natal teams to refer you to) and then sort out a booking apppointment.

I don't suppose it matters whether these bits and bobs are done with a GP or a MW as they're pretty basic stuff.

Congrats by the way!

Here you have to go to the GP surgery and collect some bits of paper, which includes the midwives' phone number, so you just phone them if you're going to the default local hosp. If you want to go to the other hosp, you have to see the GP to get referred. The GP did nothing the first time, just said 'ok, I'll refer you'. This time he took my blood pressure and asked for a wee sample to confirm the pregnancy.

I just looked up the number for my health centre, asked them for the midwifes number, and asked her if I could book straight in with her. She said sure so off I went :)

Round here you can self-refer straight to the maternity unit.

I went straight to the local midwife for mine after being advised by GPs receptionist. My periods were irregular so they weren't able to properly calculate my due date. The mw did check my stomach to make sure I wasn't further along than I said - think she was worried incase I had to be rushed through! Other than that I got a leaflet to read, told to take vitimins, took my weight and height and if I had any questions. They also ask where you wanna have the baby as my next appointment will be with the hospital mw. Who incidently rung me later that day after having my paperwork to also check my dates! It varies from area to area I guess.

you shouldn't really have to go to a gp - a booking should be done by a midwife and she can do all the stuff your gps have been doing, and should do a lot more. They do claim some money for antenatal care which is fair enough if they will be providing some but if they are sending you straight to the midwife and never see you again then it's a waste of NHS money and a bit cheeky.

here's a link to what should be happening at all your antenatal appointments:

antenatal care info for pregnant women