Tell me about prenatal care with a family doctor

[MittensKittens]

I've decided that I want regular prenatal care with a medical professional for my next pregnancy, because of the horrible aftermath of the birth - I was unable to get the birth certificate for many months, and had to have a DNA test done.

I have no problems with having a medical professional do things like monitoring blood pressure, doing urine dips, listening to the heart beat with a fetoscope, and measuring fundal height. The thing is, I think having just that is pretty difficult with an OB. I figure a family doctor would be the best match for prenatal care for me.

Has anyone done that? Are family doctors generally happy to provide the above things? What was your experience? After having prenatal care with a family doctor, would you recommend it to other UC-ers? Also, does having prenatal care with a family doctor mean that you have to take the baby in soon after the birth? I prefer to wait a while, if everything is OK.

[Kidzaplenty]

In my experience, FP docs are not willing to provide prenatal care because of liability issues. My FP is a liscensed OB that changed practices due to insurance costs, and he refuses to do any type of pgcy care (his malpractice ins will not allow it).

[Carolyn R]

I have not UC'ed, but I just wanted to offer my experience.

Obviously, I am sure there is a huge variation in doctors, but we have a family practice doctor my whole family has been seeing for about 6 years, and he's GREAT. He was recommended to me by my midwife after we had a loss and wanted to have some medical care for a subsequent pregnancy but not have the whole "high risk" protocol thrown at us.

He is very hands-off and naturally minded, discusses things with us thoroughly, and very respectful of our opinions and beliefs. For our fourth birth, he even gave us his cell phone number and told us to call if we wanted him at our homebirth.

When I've seen him for prenatal care, we've just done the basics...urine dip, blood pressure, etc. and he's never pushed us to do testing, monitoring, etc that we weren't comfortable with. As far as seeing the babies after birth, he's always been very flexible about how soon they are seen, pretty much leaving it up to us when we wanted to bring them in.

Best of luck, and I hope you can find someone who is a great fit!

[Magali]

I think it depends. Around here family docs do prenatals/deliver babies. OB's only get consulted in case of emergency. Really, anything is possible I would imagine if you look around. Heck, I just UPed for my planned hospital birth and it went great.

[crystal_buffaloe]

I did prenatal care with our regular family practitioner. At each appointment, she did a urine dip, heartbeat, fundal height, weight & blood pressure. I did opt for a dating ultrasound and the 20-week anatomy scan, and a 41-week BPP, but did no other testing (she did offer me some pamphlets on different tests at our first prenatal, and then at our second she asked if I'd like to get the testing done, but she never said much about them, and I didn't want them anyway). I liked staying with my regular doctor because she already knew me and now she's also the baby's doctor -- it seemed like more continuity of care.

Edit: I have not UC'd. It might be more difficult not to come in within 24 or 48hours of the birth with a FP than an OB -- just because after the baby is born, you can just stop seeing the OB and you'll be with your FP a while longer.

[MyBoysBlue]

I had a FP with both my pregnancies. One Hospital one UC. The FP I had for my hospital birth was really hands off and relaxed. I wasn't well informed so I went along with the Glucose test and the GBS tests and 2 ultrasounds. But otherwise he was pretty great and I went back to him for my second but he had cut back to half time and he wasn't doing births anymore.

I ended up going through a few different docs at the clinic and the one I ended up with dropped me at 38 weeks. Basically he told me if I would not accept ABX as soon as I walked into the hospital, due to being GBS + he would not attend the birth. Which was fine with me because I was secretly planning a UC. I only argued that I didn't want them because I birthed my first really fast in like 40 minutes and they would be ineffective in that time frame. He got angry that I was questioning him and presented his ultimatum.

The day after the birth I went into see a new FP doc I had already made an appointment with before the birth and she was great. Checked us both over and even wrote the letter I needed to register the birth.