Baby's Story

In your first prenatal visit, the doctor will also examine your head, neck, breasts, heart, lungs, abdomen and legs and arms. He or she will also do an internal exam in order to observe the uterus and ovaries, and will also want to do cytology.

After the exam talk about the general plan of your pregnancy and the possible problems. Ask about all the medications you can take, when it is important to get ahold of the doctor and ask for help, and wh

at type of tests you will need to be getting throughout your pregnancy.

The Standard Pregnancy Tests
Obviously there are a few things that the doctor will ask you to do in your first prenatal visit which include getting blood tests and urinating in a jar. So in the following we have listed some of the typical or standard procedures that are done with pregnant women.

Blood Tests
In your first prenatal visit, your doctor will ask you to get a number of blood tests that are standard and these will indicate your general health and if you are immune to certain infections. These are some of the most common ones:

• Standard test to establish the blood group, the RH factor and the antibodies. The blood type refers to your blood type which are A, B, AB or O, and if you are Rh positive or negative. The antibodies test is designed to know if you have certain special antibodies at determined antigens.

• Hemogram or complete hematic test. This test determines if you have anemia, which means there is a low count of red blood cells. At the same time it evaluates the count of the platelets and white blood cells.

• Serology. This test confirms or discards the presence of syphilis, which is a sexually transmitted disease.

• Hepatitis B. this test is done to discard the presence of the hepatitis B virus. These can present themselves in various forms, and the hepatitis B one does not necessarily manifest itself with symptoms. In fact, some women are only diagnosed with the disease when they get a blood test, for example the one that is done when a woman is pregnant.

• Rubella. The doctor will also check if the woman is immune to rubella. Almost all women are immune to it because they have been vaccinated in the past or have had the disease before; and for this reason it is very unlikely for a woman to get it during pregnancy. But almost all doctors do the rubella test in the first prenatal check up. Women that are not immune to it are told to not go into contact with people that have it and to get vaccinated against it after the baby is born so that they are not vulnerable in later on pregnancies.

• HIV. In some places it is obligatory for the doctor to do the HIV test, the virus that causes AIDS. Since there are medications that reduce the risk of transmission, besides slowing down the disease in the mother that does have it, and being aware of the situation is very important. The doctor usually does the tests simultaneously with other prenatal tests.

Other tests that are sometimes done during the first prenatal visits are:

• Glucose test. This test is usually done in the twenty-fourth and twenty-eighth week of pregnancy, but in some cases it is done in the first three months of pregnancy if you have a high risk of developing gestational diabetes.

• Chickenpox. Your doctor might do this test to see if you are immune to chickenpox. If you are not sure if you had it in the past or not, let your doctor know so he can do the immune test on you.

• Toxoplasmosis. Sometimes the doctor may administer a test to check your immunity to toxoplasmosis, which is a type of parasite infection. In some places it is not considered a routine test unless there is a risk of getting it. if you have a cat that lives outside for example and you are the person that cleans the cats waste, the doctor will probably do the test on you. In some places such as in France this test is almost always done because there is a much higher chance of getting it.