Prenatal Care

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Basics

• Summary
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• Related Issues
• Specifics

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Research

• Statistics and Research
• Clinical Trials
• Journal Articles

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For You

• Patient Handouts

Summary

Prenatal care is the health care you get while you are pregnant. It includes your checkups and prenatal testing. Prenatal care can help keep you and your baby healthy. It lets your health care provider spot health problems early. Early treatment can cure many problems and prevent others.

Your doctor or midwife will give you a schedule for your prenatal visits. If you are over 35 years old or your pregnancy is high risk because of health problems like diabetes or high blood pressure, your doctor or midwife will probably want to see you more often. You can also expect to see your health care provider more often as your due date gets closer.

Dept. of Health and Human Services Office on Women's Health

Start Here

• Have a Healthy Pregnancy (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion)
• Medical Care during Pregnancy (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish
• Pre-Pregnancy Care and Prenatal Care (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Also in Spanish
• Pregnancy Check-Ups: Healthy Start for Mom and Baby (National Institutes of Health)
• Prenatal Care (Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women's Health) Also in Spanish
• Prenatal Care Checkup (March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation) Also in Spanish
• Taking Care of You and Your Baby While You're Pregnant (American Academy of Family Physicians) Also in Spanish
• What Can I Do to Promote a Healthy Pregnancy? (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Also in Spanish

Related Issues

• Pregnancy and Nutrition: MedlinePlus Health Topic (National Library of Medicine) Also in Spanish
• Women of Size and Pregnancy (American College of Nurse-Midwives) - PDF

Specifics

• Prenatal Care: First Trimester Visits (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)
• Prenatal Care: Second Trimester Visits (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)
• Prenatal Care: Third Trimester Visits (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)
• What Happens during Prenatal Visits? (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Also in Spanish

Statistics and Research

• PeriStats: Perinatal Statistics (March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation)

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: Prenatal Care (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: COVID-19 impact on perinatal care: risk factors, clinical manifestation and prophylaxis....
• Article: Effect of blood transfusion during cesarean section on postpartum hemorrhage in...
• Article: Ursodeoxycholic acid improves pregnancy outcome in patients with intrahepatic cholestasis during...
• Prenatal Care -- see more articles

Find an Expert

• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Also in Spanish
• March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation Also in Spanish
• womenshealth.gov (Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women's Health) Also in Spanish

Patient Handouts

• Pregnancy care (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Prenatal care in your first trimester (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Prenatal care in your second trimester (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Prenatal care in your third trimester (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish