When does prenatal care refer to

The current narrow sense of prenatal care commonly used in clinical practice refers to all health care behaviors during pregnancy from the time a woman confirms intrauterine pregnancy through blood tests and B-ultrasound to the formal entry into labor (regular uterine contractions every 5-6 minutes, each lasting more than 30 seconds, accompanied by progressive dilation of the cervix).； In the past few years, prenatal care in a broad sense has been recognized by more and more practitioners in the maternal and child field, and will also include eugenic conditioning and health guidance 3-6 months before pregnancy preparation.

I have been working in community maternal and child health care for more than five years. I have met many young people who rushed over in a panic as soon as they found two lines on the pregnancy test paper. I always thought that prenatal care was something that should be prepared only when the third trimester of pregnancy is about to give birth. In fact, it is not at all. Last month, a little girl born in 1995 came for a pre-pregnancy check-up four months before she was planning to get pregnant. I told her about the need to take active folic acid supplements in advance, that her spouse should stop smoking and limit alcohol consumption, and not to take antibiotics indiscriminately while preparing for pregnancy. She even asked me with a smile whether this was prenatal care in advance. According to the current broad definition, of course, this kind of pre-pregnancy care can actually help avoid many possible risks during pregnancy.

The reason why the traditional definition only counts the post-pregnancy stage is actually related to the public health care habits in the early years. In the past, many people did not have the awareness to actively prepare for pregnancy. Most people only started to pay attention to pregnancy health after they became pregnant. Naturally, the starting point of prenatal care was set at the moment when pregnancy was confirmed. The content covered by this part of care is also very complicated, including progesterone monitoring in the first trimester, rejection risk screening, sugar control diet guidance after glucose tolerance in the second trimester, teaching how to count fetal movements and practicing Lamaze breathing in the third trimester, and even many expectant mothers are prone to anxiety in the third trimester and come to the outpatient clinic for emotional counseling. As long as they have not been formally admitted to the delivery room and entered labor, these all fall under the category of prenatal care.

There was a 38-week-pregnant mother who hurriedly came to the hospital because she had frequent false contractions and thought she was going to give birth. We performed fetal heart rate monitoring on her for 20 minutes to confirm that there was no problem. We also taught her how to distinguish true and false contractions, and also walked her through the emergency procedures for redness and water rupture. These are also very typical prenatal care contents. In fact, there is no need to worry too much about whether to define time in a narrow or broad sense. Whether it is the pregnancy preparation stage or post-pregnancy conditioning, the core purpose is to allow the mother-to-be and the fetus to go through the entire cycle more smoothly and welcome the time of delivery smoothly. Follow the guidance of the medical staff and you will not go wrong.