lunes, 9 de febrero de 2015

Pregnant in the UK - Part 1 early pregnancy (First steps)

First of all congratulations!

I hope that your pregnancy fills you with joy and I will assume that you want to see your baby born and healthy in a few months.

The first step is to confirm the pregnancy, to be honest, you do not need to make an appointment with your GP to test for your pregnancy, you also do not need to buy very expensive pregnancy tests.
I have researched and used various brands and 50p pregnancy tests from Tesco or Asda, or any supermarket are as accurate than expensive brands such as Clearblue. (and this is coming from someone who is a great fan of Clearblue ovulation sticks.
So, you test on your stick and it comes back positive, yay! Now what??

Try to remember when you had your last period and write it down. Count 7 weeks after the date of the last period start.
Why 7 weeks?, because this is when the Midwife will see you to start your pregnancy asessments.

In the UK most of the pregnancies are followed up by a midwife, not by a doctor, not by the GP. They are specialized healthcare professionals that are trained in evaluating pregnancy and delivering babies and helping with breast feeding training for the new mother and how to manage a baby in the first few months. Most of them are really nice and will be a source of endless information.

So you call your GP surgery and ask to make an appointment with the midwife around week 7.
If you have already past this week, ask to make an appointment as soon as possible and you will be seen at the first available slot.

Have your dates of last period at hand, as this is needed to make the appointment if you have it to hand, if you have no clue when your period was or you have irregular periods, do not worry, they will still give you an appointment but they might be slightly annoyed. (that is life!)