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June 2015 Moms
melmac2013
member
mom's from ontario
melmac2013
member
Just wondering when your first appointment is with your ob? My family doctor said they don't take you till 28 weeks and that seems like a long time.
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Re: mom's from ontario
Doctors are pushing for shared care more and more. Which means you see your family doctor until 28wks and then transfer to an ob. I turned down this option.
Like pp have mentioned, every doc is different but a lot of OBs don't elect to see you until the end of 2nd tri, because Family docs are more than qualified to do prenatal care. This frees up the OBs to focus on deliveries (and more Indepth end of term appointments).
A pro of seeing your family doc for longer is that there is less chance of them having to cancel/reschedule an appointment because of having to leave for a delivery.
I live 4 hrs away from where I will give birth (where the ob is) so the dr here is hoping that he will see me for regular apts and then I won't have to travel as much in the winter
Most people I know that choose the midwife route, do so as an alternative to OB.
Just a midwife. If I had gone the OB route the I would have seen the OB at 10 w as that's how my family doc prefers to do it. The only time that I would see an OB is as a consult if my midwife was concerned about something. That happened with DD as I developed pre-eclampsia (and it turned into a transfer of care to an OB until after delivery).
I'm being delivered by a family doc group, but like @trapdoorsteph, will have to see an OB sometime in second/third tri (also because I had a c-section with my DS) to discuss the risks/benefits of VBAC (which I'm hoping for this time around)
just curious for those Ontario moms who are not seeing an OB until closer to 18-20+ weeks: is your GP/Midwife sending you for your bloodwork and NT screens instead?
My DH is a family physician, who doesn't do deliveries, but has many many prenatal patients he sees until end of second tri, when they have a transfer of care to OB/delivering docs.
The very practical reason a lot of OBs wait to see patients until later in prgnancy, is because they spend a lot of time doing actual deliveries/dealing with end of pregnancy complicated care. As a result they often have to cancel prenatal appointments/clinic days.
Since all GPs are more than qualified to do early prenatal care/refer for testing etc, from a logistical perspective it makes more sense to have them do the early pregnancy prenatal appointments as it helps to lighten the clinic day of their OB counterparts (and reduces the chance of your routine appointment being cancelled-because your OB is deleivering a baby.)