What are the prenatal care measures?

The core of prenatal care is to dynamically adjust monitoring, diet, exercise, and psychological adjustment plans based on the status of the mother and baby at different gestational ages. There is no unified standardized template. The core principle is to make the pregnant mother comfortable and the fetus safe.

I have been working as an obstetric nurse for almost 7 years. I just followed up with Ms. Lin, who was 34 weeks pregnant last week. She used to think that prenatal care was all about regular prenatal check-ups. She stayed up late to watch dramas and didn’t care about everything. As a result, she had frequent contractions for a week and went to the emergency room in the middle of the night. After adjusting her schedule and diet, she quickly stabilized. She herself lamented that daily care was much more important than she imagined.

Fetal movement monitoring, which everyone is most familiar with, actually does not have completely unified requirements in the industry. The old version of the guideline recommends taking one hour each morning, noon and evening every day. It is normal for fetal movement to be no less than 3 times per hour and more than 10 times in 12 hours. There are also clinical studies in recent years that suggest that as long as the pregnant mother can feel the fetus. There is no sudden increase or decrease in the daily pattern of fetal movement. There is no need to deliberately count at fixed points to avoid excessive anxiety due to occasional small fetal movements, which will affect the state. Both opinions are reasonable. You can choose according to your own personality. If you are prone to anxiety, you do not need to count at fixed points. If you are careless, it is safer to pay more attention.

In addition to home monitoring, most of the daily body care is actually adjusted according to the discomfort during pregnancy. For example, if you have severe vomiting in the first trimester, you don't have to force yourself to take "nutritious" supplements. You can eat whatever you can. Even if you eat white porridge and pickles every day, it doesn't matter. You can catch up with nutritional supplements after the second trimester. If you have swollen feet or low back pain in the second and third trimester of pregnancy, do not go to a health center to massage your waist or feet. When you sit, put a small stool about 10 centimeters under your feet. When you sleep, raise your feet by 15 degrees and wear well-fitting soft-soled shoes. Most of the discomfort can be relieved a lot. A pregnant mother who was 35 weeks pregnant had feet that were so swollen that she could not wear her own shoes and could only wear her husband's size 42 slippers. After adjusting this method for 3 days, she returned to her original size 37 shoes. As for the weight management that everyone is most concerned about, in fact, just adjust it according to your pre-pregnancy BMI (body mass index). If you are thin before pregnancy, it will be no problem if you gain 12-18 kilograms throughout pregnancy. If you are fat before pregnancy, controlling it to 7-10 kilograms is enough. There is no need to force it for the child. The milky white bone broth looks nutritious but is actually full of fat. If you really need to supplement calcium, drink pure milk, take calcium tablets, and get more sunshine than anything else.

What many people ignore is prenatal psychological care. I have met too many pregnant mothers in the third trimester who could not sleep all night long after reading about a few birth accidents. They were always worried that something would happen to them. At this time, you really don’t have to bear it. During the prenatal check-up, you can talk to the doctors and nurses more, or go to the hospital’s free prenatal education class and chat with pregnant mothers of the same gestational age. Most of the anxiety can be resolved. There are different opinions on whether to learn breathing techniques and do birthing drills in advance before delivery. Some believe that familiarizing yourself with the delivery process and mastering Lamaze breathing in advance can reduce the panic during delivery. Others believe that you don’t need to study it deliberately. You won’t be able to remember the pain when you give birth. Just follow the midwife’s instructions. Learning too much will make you more anxious because you won’t be able to use it by then. There is no problem with either option. It just depends on your acceptance.

In fact, prenatal care is really not as complicated as everyone thinks. You don’t need to go through the list one by one on the Internet. As long as you feel comfortable and all the indicators in the prenatal check-up are normal, it doesn’t matter if you are craving for ice cream or go shopping for a long time. After all, the most important thing is that the pregnant mother is happy.