What happened at your 16 week check?

[randommangoandpear]

Just curious. I remember with my first, they always checked urine and I think they checked the heartbeat!

I had my 16 week midwife appointment today. All she did was give me my combined screening and gestational diabetes results (negative) and check my BP. No urine or Doppler, or bump measurement.

I had urine, BP and they did listen for the heartbeat. However I am under shared care and this was the hospital one rather than the midwife (although that was the only 16w check I've had) so not sure whether that's why. I do oddly have another one tomorrow and I'm now 19w, not sure why or what will happen there...

@PickledScrump well, I am a little concerned because at booking my BP was 120/70 and today at 16 16 weeks it was 110/80 then 110/78. Why on earth is it going up? I checked it at home and diastolic ranges from 69-78.

That's still a perfect blood pressure reading though. Do you have pre existing conditions or did you have complications with your first pregnancy? As whilst I agree with erring on the side of caution, it sounds like you are quite anxious? Tbh best thing to do is just give the midwife team a call and ask them for some checks for your own reassurance.

They are all perfectly normal. Blood pressure does fluctuate so there is nothing to worry about there.

Yep! Midwife listened, couldn’t hear anything, cue horrible time waiting for another appointment to check. All was fine but it was a really stressful time that wasn’t necessary and according to NICE isn’t particularly helpful to try to listen anyway

Midwives are not allowed to heat babies' heartbeats until 25 weeks. At your 16-week check, they check your urine, BP, and go through blood tests that you would have done at 12 weeks

I had my 16 week appointment today. She checked my BP, took a urine sample, booked my follow up appointment, and asked how I was getting on. Opportunity to ask questions. Asked about MH and DV. When she was wrapping up, I asked about a Doppler. She explained very well that it’s not routinely offered now because there was little clinical merit, it’s not always easy to find this early, and they don’t want to cause distress or anxiety as a result. Followed up by explaining that if she couldn’t find one, there would be no pathway to follow this up, such as sending me to EPU for a scan, and the best they could offer would be a re-Doppler a week later. She said she was happy to do one, but it’s only done because it’s nice for mum to hear baby’s heartbeat. Then let me decide knowing that information, and I said I would still like her to try. All was well, good heartbeat, and I thought she was very professional with the information delivery.

Another midwife here

As well as the above i use the 16 weeks appointment to make sure all referrals made at booking have been followed through, then we have to manually make any extra appts eg GTT, Birth Choices appts; we also check socially how women are doing, do they want a referral for extra support. I discuss antenatal classes and all the extra local bits.

There's actually a lot to cover in 20mins! My clinics always run late