How much is the mother's responsibilty?

And how much is up to her dr/health care providor?

The reason I ask is that there is a woman who I work with who found out she was pregnant, rang the midwife's clinic got an appointment for 12 weeks and then went to the appointment and found out that she should've been taking folate since day one, should not have been drinking etc etc. She claims she didn't know these things as no one had told her??:confused: Anyways she blames the midwives clinic and she says they are lucky her baby was fine.

My take on it is that its HER responsibilty to follow up with the midwives what she should do, to research and read up on her healthcare and that of her baby. She claims no one ever told her she should go for scans so she never had one!!!

What do you think? How much is it up to the mother to read up/research, and how much should she rely on her health care provider to tell her??

Did she ever have her pregnancy confirmed? When I have had my pregnancies confirmed, that is when I get told to take folate, not to drink or smoke (not that I do anyway) and I get my BP and everything else checked. I am suprised that she was so uneducated on pregnancy care. Fair enough not knowing about folate, but it has been a known fact for a very long time that drinking isn't good for your baby. I remember knowing that when I was a child.
I hope from now on, the woman you work with reads up on her pregnancy and asks alot of questions at all her appts.

Her Dr should have told her all this when she got the pregnancy confirmed.
I would have thought she had seen the Dr to get a midwife appt at the hospital. I didn't think you could just call them up and make your own appt without the Dr writing to them first to book you in.

Um.. this person you know sounds dumb. Sorry to put it so bluntly.

I think she should have done some of her own research to find out if there were things she should/shouldn't be doing to help the baby be healthy, etc, though I do agree that her doctor or midwife should have made sure she was taking folate.

Why didnt she know its not a good idea to drink when pregnant?

When I found out I was pregnant, I rang my GP (because I ddidnt know what else to do!) and he said to take folate and to ring and book into a hospital. When I rang to book in, they just got me to fill in a form, but didnt say anything about folate or anything else, but the booking in clerk isnt a nurse or midwife... I am still yet to go to my first appointment, but I will be asking questions when I go, as I am sure anyone with half a brain would.

Michelle, I rang and booked in with the hospital (public) and they didnt ask me for a referral from my own Doctor? I thought they would ask for one, but they told me they didnt need it?

This is in NZ so the system is slightly different here. Apparently she rang the dr told him she got a BFP on a pee on the stick and he told her to ring the midwives. Her baby is now coming on for 2.

Karina - no you are quite right - she is daft. I think she just thought life went on normally. She said her pregnancy was a surprise - but then she had lost one through a m/c earlier so she should've known something I would've thought!!!

I agree with the other replies so far that when she had her pregnancy confirmed by her doctor that certain information should have been provided then.

We need to remember not everyone is into looking up things/researching and as such may not know where to look, especially in the case of an unplanned pregnancy. If you weren't planning on becoming pregnant, why would you even take notice of what to do? So I really do think there is a responsibility on the health providers to at least provide basic information and maybe some pointers on where to look up more.

With regards to not knowing about scans etc, well that seems to depend on the pregnancy and person exactly how many are done and when. So really it is up to the health provider once again to advise the mum to be about them and what her options are.

Saying all that though, anyone should not be afraid to ask simple things, such as what happens next and what should I be doing or not doing.

One thing we need to remember here is not everyone is educated about pregnancy and children etc.

There are a lot of women out there who don't have friends or family with kids and wouldnt have the slightest idea about pregnancy because they have never needed to know before.

There are also people out there who dont use the internet and wouldnt know about a lot of things. So please dont take for granted how educated we are about these things.

How was she to know if she had never been told before? its not something you should just know.

Anyway, hopefully its all sorted for her and now and her bubba is ok :)

Silly thing.....she should have at least asked the midwives when she rang them for her first appointment if there was anything she should/should't be doing.....I bet the midwife was real impressed when she said they were lucky her baby was fine!
At least she's not in the US where she could probably sue and win for such an argument!

Goodness me! So she also needs to be specifically told by a healthcare professional that if she smokes she could get lung cancer and all other sorts of nasties?!?! If she is older than 15 years then she should just know better, or at least have the common sense to see a doc and ask questions, or ask other pg women that she knows.

She does sound a little daft. And yes we are educated because of the internet and BB but surely if you didn't have these things and didn't know the first thing about having a baby that you would go out and buy a book? And really a lot of things are common sense surely people who know nothing would know that smoking and drinking would not be good for a baby even the people that still do it anyway most of them know that it's not going to be good.

To me i think information like that should be given to the mum-to-be. Because when i found out i was pregnant with Lily(which was unplanned), i had no idea what was going to happen or what i should do etc. I had never known anyone who was pregnant or had young children or anything. I went to my GP and was in with her for 1.5hrs with her telling me everythning i should know etc and that it was great and i would like to think all doctors do this, especially if the pregnancy is unplanned.

I agree that there is a certain level of responsibility on behalf of health care professionals to provide basic advice. The midwives should have at least asked if she knew anything about pregnancy - surely that would exercising a duty of care.

I do agree that we are fortunate to have all this information at our finger tips, and appreciate the fact that some people aren't into researching stuff, but ultimately everyone is responsible for their own body and should make an effort to be informed.

That's my 2 cents worth :D

I agree with Tegan totally. If you have never been around pregnancy and you suddenly find yourself pregnant unexpectedly how on earth would you know what to do? For us it all seems so normal because we are members of a site that deals with all of these sorts of things & most of us I would assume have researched these sorts of things. For example, a lot of people don't know about taking folate and I only realised when we were TTC and I spoke to my Dr about what I should be doing.

The midwives should have spoken to her IMO about all of the things she needs to do & not just assume that because she is pregnant she knows what she can / can't do. I mean c'mon how many posts are on this forum about what you can & can't do whilst pregnant???

I think you would have to be acomplete dim wit even if you had never been around a pg person in your life but still didn't know drinking/smoking was not good. These things are not good for you pg or not pg.

I was completely shocked when I found out I was PG and even though I knew there were things I shouldn't eat or do I didn't know exactly. Of course I knew about smoking & drinking though... so I found BB that week. My GP did run through things & give me heaps of info and paperwork to read, but I found BB stuff sank in better.

I see 2 sides to this.

1. Not everyone is net addicted like *some* of us are (lol) and do not look into info etc before TTC, and therefore, probably assume the Obs or Midwives would give some kind of info on caring for yourself and baby upon first contact....but

2. Some things are just common sense as far as smoking, drinking etc etc.

Soooo....reponsibility is ultimately the Mothers IMO, but the Care providers have some duty of care to ensure the mother is informed.

Sure, your friend could have been more proactive, but I do actually think the healthcare providers have their fair share of responsibility here too.

Lets say we were talking about something different like when I found out I had gallstones. My GP didn't just send me to a specialist, she first of all told me everything she knew about it all, so that I had some knowledge in the interim.

HOwever what happened to your friend would never happen to me.. I'm such an info junkie that I knew just about everything about getting pregnant before it even happened!

Wow, how daft! I was taking folate anyway and knew about the vitamins to take in pregnancy, as well as what food I can't eat, but even so the doctor did just check that I wasn't drinking/smoking/doing drugs and taking folate/vitamins and eating fortified cereal (oops, another thing out the window on my holiday - but I'm drinking fortified bottled water!). Also they made me fill out a form with how much I drink and how much I smoke, when I quit (or, as in my case, never smoked)... also how much DH smokes (or not).

However, if I knew NOTHING, which would be very hard (do you not have sex education at school in NZ?) I'd look up stuff on the Internet to check if I could do something for my baby. Or buy a pregnancy book, there are so many out there. Or even ask a friend, even the non-preggie obsessed ones know basics like no alcohol! I'd even do that before the GP appointment - though I was lucky and saw my GP the next day, I usually have to wait 3-4 days for an appointment.