Women’s and Children’s Health
Services for pregnant mothers and newborns
A) First antenatal visit and registration
During the first visit to our clinic we perform the following:
• Registration of mothers by the clinic – we document your details, and take a brief medical history
• Clinical measurements – We record your weight, height, Blood Pressure
• Physical examination – The doctor performs a systematic examination and focussed abdominal examination to measure the height of your uterus
• Blood tests – We check your blood to ensure that you do not have conditions that can pose risk to your pregnancy such as malaria, anaemia [your blood is weak], a syphilis infection or hepatitis.
• Urine test – We perform a dipstick urine test to check for conditions that may affect the pregnancy such as renal diseases, hypertension in pregnancy and diabetes
• Ultrasound examination – our radiologist performs an ultrasound to assess your pregnancy
• Provide medications – we provide to the pregnant mother medication for prophylaxis
Ultrasound examination
Our radiologist will perform your ultrasound and provide a report, and when added to the clinical information already gathered about your pregnancy, a thorough and comprehensive understanding of your pregnancy can be made. We will keep all this information in your records at our clinic, so that during your next visit a complete information is available to you and the doctor.
The pregnancy ultrasound examination during your first visit can provide important information such as:
• Whether your pregnancy is singleton or twin pregnancy
• The lie of the foetus in the uterus
• The position of the placenta
• Date the pregnancy, which can be correlated with your clinical examination
• Document the foetal wellbeing such as foetal heart rate, foetal movements, foetal breathing, foetal weight, umbilical artery velocity assessment, liquor volume [fluid surrounding the foetus], and foetal weight
• The expected date of delivery
• Record the findings as base line to monitor the growth and wellbeing of the foetus
• Our radiologist does not normally provide the gender of your baby, but if you request it, he can inform you the gender of the foetus
B) Subsequent Antenatal visits
You can attend our clinic for your subsequent antenatal visits to enable our doctor and nurse to monitor your pregnancy and general health.
During your subsequent visits, the doctor and nurse will perform the following:
• Doctor performs physical examination to check growth of the foetus
• Monitoring of mother’s weight and Blood Pressure
• Urine test using dipstick
• Medication for prophylaxis, or tetanus toxoid injection if required
• Ultrasound scan to assess and monitor the growth and wellbeing of the foetus
• Ultrasound to assess if your baby has a structural abnormality
C) Postnatal services
After the mother has been discharged from the delivery suite and immediate post-natal care services at the hospital, she can attend our clinic with her newborn baby where we offer the following services:
Doctor’s consultation
• At 7 days post deliver
• At 14 days post delivery
• At 28 days post-delivery
During the post-natal visits, our doctor and nurse will assess the mother and newborn
• To check that Mother’s post -partum event is progressing well or there are problems
• Breastfeeding assessment to check that the baby is establishing proper attachment to breast
• Provide Family planning counselling
• Discuss the family planning contraceptive methods
• Assess the mother’s condition at 6 weeks post-partum and report on her condition to resume work