Private Blood tests before week 12

[Evrosina]

Hi everyone, I am new here. I am very confused as everywhere online says that I need to have an appointment and tests for things like Sickle cell and thalassaemia before week 10.

But I called three hospitals all said that they start to see me for my first appointment on week 12. But everywhere online says that this is too late to detect early issues so I was wondering what everyone else does? and is there any private tests that I can pay for not to wait this long for the NHS ones?

Hey, congratulations! They usually do all blood work at your first midwife appointment and check everything that needs to be checked. I wouldn't rely on google to much as it can be very unreliable. If 3 hospitals have said to wait id probably wait. They will ask you questions about family history of sickle cell and partners aswell. However if your extremely worries and want to pay for it maybe go to a fertility clinic maybe your best bet or ask the gp and say your extremely worried about xxx

I got all those tests done at 9 weeks at my booking appt with the midwife, a large proportion of that was done via phonecall before christmas, each trust is different with how they see you so if they have told you to wait i would wait

Are you in UK? If so to get all the tests and things booked you need to contact either your GP or directly your local midwife service (varies between areas, mine is my GP) to get yourself on the system as a pregnant lady. You will then have an initial booking appointment with the midwife who will either do or arrange the blood tests one gave me the paperwork to take to our drop-in blood clinic).
The only thing people here tend to so privately is additional scans.

Thanks everyone for your lovely replies and reassurance. I booked a private scan for week 7 and I found a group called "nuffieldhealth" that offers some private blood tests so I can get started with few ones until my first NHS appointment.

Honestly you really don't need to have private blood tests, you'll get the same things done on the NHS in time anyway. You may end up having to have them again anyway through the NHS. You'd be better saving your money for a treat for yourself or baby, I promise you. The scan is a bit of a different situation, lots of people choose to pay for extra ones privately but these are in addition to the NHS ones.
This timeline shows the NHS process, you might find it reassuring www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/week-by-week/1-to-12/

@8dpwoah my only concern that even the NHS website say that I will be offered tests in the 8th and 10th week. Also their website explicitly says that the Sickle Cell Test has to be done before the 10th week. But NHS are not actually following this schedule or maybe it's just the area of Kent that is like that but I have called my 3 nearest hospitals and they said they start to see me in the 12th week. Which is a bit strange for me that no one see me at all except at the end of the third month.

Even hospitals websites says you need to contact your GP or midwife as soon as possible to get information about what to eat or what vitamins to take and to get blood and urine tests...etc. And the only thing I got from my GP was the website link to the hospital where I need to register and they told me we have nothing to do with Pregnancy. So I am just feeling that I am alone without anyone checking on my pregnancy until week 12 which is terrifying me.

Usually you would self refer to the local midwife when you find out your pregnant and your booking in appt would be round about week 8, they will do your bloods and checks then. Have you self referred to the midwife? You should be able to get the phone number from your GP receptionist

@Lou98 only thing I was given from my GP is this link: www.dgt.nhs.uk/services/a-z-services/maternity-services/booking-have-your-baby-darent-valley-hospital to self register in the hospital but no info about midwifes or any sort of tests I was offered from the GP. Am I doing something wrong?

@Evrosina - our GP is the same, totally not interested in pregnancy. Makes it all quite hard. We had to register with the hospital directly and we got our midwife that way, but didn’t have our booking appointment with her until very late. As a result of how long it all took we didn’t end up with a 12 week scan until 14 weeks, as they are also really busy. So we had a private scan at just before 12 weeks. Didn’t do any bloods early though (didn’t know that was thing though, so it wasn’t a conscious choice - are you high risk?)

It blows my mind that we can’t do it directly with our GPs.

@Shamoo Ya it's really bad that a pregnant woman is left without any clue of what she needs to do or if her pregnancy is in a good shape until this long. I don't even know if I am high risk or not. How would I know if no one have diagnosed me :(

Have you registered via the link your GP provided?

@LittleBearPad I did yes but then I called the hospital and they told me that they tend to see patients in the week 12 nothing before that.

The sickle cell test would not change what happened (and depending on your ethnicity may be very rare anyway).

Again like pp please don’t get private bloods you will get them all on Nhs soon anyway. Perhaps phone the hospital midwives just to talk it over?

How many weeks are you? If you've registered as per the GPs instructions then a midwife should be in touch around week 8/9, nothing usually gets done before then because of the sadly high risk of miscarriage. She will then organise bloods and also your 12 week (ish) scan which will be when you have first contact with the hospital, which is why they are saying they won't see you til then.

It's frustrating but you do need to just follow the NHS timeline I posted earlier and also use that to start making noises if dates are getting close or passed.
That said I'm not sure the sickle cell HAS to be done by week 10, you're either a carrier or not (you'd know if you'd got it). Definitely just stick to NHS information, a lot of the time posts on here are well-informed too but please stay away from Dr Google as a lot of it is either irrelevant to UK oe just plain wrong.

If you've registered on the link the GP gave, and you're coming up 8 weeks, you need to get back onto the GP and/or look up the specific phone number for your community midwives (different to the hospital the majority of the time) to see if they have you in the system.

I only had my bloods taken for all screening test at my booking appointment at 12 weeks. I had an earlier appointment at 9 weeks but cancelled as I changed from the NHS to private in the same hospital. I did a private ultrasound at 8 weeks for a peace of mind but other than that the first time I met my midwives was at 12 weeks. Neither the midwives or the consultant I met mentioned anything wrong with doing the tests at 12 weeks for all the screening I opted in to do (I definitely remember thalassaemia to be on the list). It may be helpful for you if you call up your midwives/GP and ask them specifically about this.

I find maternity healthcare in the UK to be a bit more laidback in the first trimester. To be fair I do not find this a problem as there is really not much that can be done in the first trimester. If you want more information on what food to eat/not eat, the NHS pregnancy website is very informative.