Why see a doctor when pregnant?

[mears]

How many pregnant mums out there have seen the midife to confirm pregnancy instead of the doctor? Do women realise that he midwife has the expertise in normal care?
The midwife is the appropriately trained person to look after a woman with normal pregnancy, yet the vast majority of women expect to see a doctor. It is proposed that this should change if it has not changed already in some areas. Women should be able to go directly to the midwife for her care. Ofcourse she could still see her GP or consultant obstetrician if she wanted to, but she shouldn't HAVE to.
The midwife would refer her to the consultant should any problems arise during the pregnancy.
Has anybody got experience of this type of care?
What do you think about it?

I had the opposite health care experience to what many people seem to have had. It was supposed to be alternate GP/midwife appts, but 'my' midwife retired after my first appointment and then they had problems getting a replacement, so I saw a series of bank midwives. I think I saw nine different midwives, not counting the ones at the hospital. My gp was fantastic and provided continuity of care. Besides, neither the community midwives nor the gp go into hospital with you, so it didn't really matter that I mainly saw the gp. After all, my gp has/will provide my health care (and my baby's), but the midwife only dealt with the pg bit. Also, my gp recognised me, knew my name and had read my notes (or remembered them), whereas with most of the various midwives I saw, I had to go through the whole pg/birth history each time. I realise that this was not how it was meant to be and that the midwives would also have prefered me to see one of them!

Told my GP as a courtesy when I was about 7 weeks pregnant as I was seeing him anyway. Haven't seen him since, full midwife care (although had lovely phone calls about my bowels when I had food poisoning!)

I'm supposedly on shared care but I figure that the GP has better things to do than prod my fundus and measure my BP

Mears: I don't know about women expecting to see doctor during pregnancy. I didn't & what's more, the GPs sure didn't want to see me. I told a GP once I was pregnant; he said congratulations and do go see the midwife. Next pregnancy I asked my GP for a pregnancy test. She asked me if I had had unprotected sex, hearing affirmative confirmed the suspician that I might well be pregnant and advised me to go to the Family Planning Clinic if I needed to know for sure whether I was preggers or not. I made a very deliberate point of not seeing her (or any other GP) at all the rest of the pregnancy!

I saw the costor right at the start as I made an appointment to tell the clinic I was pregnant and find out what to do next. After that I only saw the midwives. During the labour I had midwife care to start with, but when the indictions didn't work I need see consultants after that as well, and obviously during the c-section.

coster???? I meant doctor!

Just to add - I didn't have continued care in the sense of same midwife at clinic and labour ward. I went to a hospital outside of my clinic's 'normal' catchment so had completely new midwives there, then back to clinic for after care.

I see my gp and my midwife alternatively, although I wish it was just my gp to be honest. My midwife doesn't know a thing about my past medical history, dosen't know my family, dosen't have a kind word to say and our communication is limited and slow as she is from Romania. At my booking in appointment she asked my husband and I why we had planned a pregnancy at our age? We were excited about our first appointment and were expecting congratulations, not dirty looks. I can't beleive that woman has got to come into our home after the babys born. Luckily the alternate appointment with my family doctor is always wonderful, he has an indepth knowledge of my history, my mums, my grandmas and so he really cares about about my health and the quality of care that I receive. Why are all midwifes so depressed and so easily shocked by things they see every day? Sorry about my post being probably offensive and far too long and off point but I needed a good rant before I have to face her again.

only saw midwife all through 1st & 2nd pg until over due then saw consultant at hosp. have moved before this pg and new GP surgery I have seen GP more than Mw. I didn't want to see GP and they don't seem to want to see me but when I asked MW why I have to keep seeing gP she said it was because she can't fit everyone in so has to spread her load with GP.

Interesting isn't it the way care is different throughout the country. Thanks for all the posts.

With our surgery you have to see the m/w and g/p alternatively. With 1st pregnancy this seemed to be very frequent and from about 26wks every 4weeks. My m/w with 1st prgn was brilliant

Now prgn with no.2 and the system is s**t! sorry but I can't get over it. tried to book apt with m/w at 10wks - it took 4 phone calls over 2wks - as my m/w was on hols and nobody could be bother to phone me back to let me know it was only 'cause I kept phoning. Then I found out she is only in on a Monday, so if it's a bank hol, she's off sick or on hols I can forget it - phoned once 'cause was worried about the baby moving and was given the community m/w tel no. - that was an answering machine. Saw m/w at 12wks then next appt was not until 24wk (which happened to be bank hol) so had to see her at 25wks. When I did see her (mine was 1st appT) and she called me in after a 20min wait (as she was on the phone) then 5mins into the appt got interupted by another phone call lasted about 5mins - asked about vbac she gave me leaflet, also explained that i was suffering from symysis pubis, she didn't know to much but gave me another leaflet and was rushed through the appt. The service has gone down hill since my 1st prg it's unbelievable!!

I still have to see dr and mw alternatively, but dr doesn't do anything only check urine and blood and if i need to know any thing then I ask you lot 'cause I have no faith in my mw. I'm 31wks and have see her twice I won't see her now until i'm 36wks. I saw a cover mw at 30wks she was brilliant.

sorry to go on but this really annoys me as i've needed to discuss things more with this prgn and have not been able to

Can I just say that my GP was fantastic. He was always delighted to see me - presumably because I wasn't another sick person with tales of woe There wasn't any difference betwen a mw appointment and a GP one really but I never thought I shouldn't be seeing the GP. He often had less of a delay in waiting time than the mw!

Just to add some more... the MWs I see at my doctors surgery as part of my shared care also work at the the hospital. There's 6 of them in the group that I've bee assigned to, and I have 2 especially assigned to me, although I have met 4 so far as they also run the ante-natal classes.

I have been given the choice of selecting to have this group look after me when I go in, so I will know my MW which is great, and sounds very different from other peoples experiences.

I had shared care (in Glasgow) - alternated appointements with my GP and the maternity hospital. GP was great - always felt he had time for me, whereas it was the hospital which felt much more like a production line! Also saw the consultant there, but suspect that was because either or both because he recognised my name (my dad was an ex colleague of his) and I was an older mum.

Having said that, I can't fault the support I've had from the hospital, both post birth of ds, when they gave me loads of breast feeding support and from the Early Pregnancy Unit during my recent miscarriage.

The community midwives I saw at home after the birth (from a different hospital, as I'd given birth "out of area" - albeit only 3 miles away!) were pretty ineffectaul and I don't think I saw the same one twice (even though they visited for slightly longer as ds wasn't gaining weight)

When I was pregnant I went to my dr and she did a test to confirm the pregnancy. She booked me in with the midwife who I saw for the first time at my first scan at 12 weeks. I then saw my Gp every month for a check up on weight, bp and to check the size of the bump. I saw another midwife for the second scan at 19 weeks and carried on seeing my gp throughout the pregnancy.

I saw another midwife and a dr at the hospital for my 32 week check. I had 2 midwives come to the house a couple of weeks before the due date, can't quite remember why they came to see me though I think they were the ones that would come see me at home after the birth and came to introduce themselves.

I liked the fact that I saw my own Gp every month for my check ups, I like my Gp she always has lots of time for me and knows my medical history. I didn't like having to see the midwives as they never seemed very happy and always seemed rushed and in a hurry and I never saw the same one twice. When our dd was finally born 10 days late I went through 4 midwife shifts during my labour and I had never met any of them before.

I think the system here has changed since then though so I'm not sure what will happen once I'm expecting baby #2 but I hope I get to see my own Dr as I feel I can talk to her more easily than a strange midwife I've never met before.

In our area most of the care is done by the midwife and in my later 2 pregnancies I never saw the doctor other than to get booked with the midwife and when he visited once on my release from hospital. The midwife did all the ante/post- natal care and I was happy to have it that way. The only problem was when I needed a sick note or prescription the midwife had to get someone else to write it which meant a return visit to the clinic to collect it.

In our area women can choose - to see GP and mw alternately, or mw only. I suppose advantages of seeing GP would be that the woman can choose when the appt is rather than being limited to the day the mw has her antenatal clinic, if she has complicated/longstanding medical history which her GP is very familiar with it can be reassuring to consult with them ..... errr..... other than that, seeing a doctor is, to me, further confirmation that pregnancy is being seen as an 'illness' rather than a normal life event (in the majority of cases)
PS. Bekki: sorry you had such a bad experience with your mw - we're not all that bad really, are we Mears?!