When you make your first of many pregnancy checkup visits to your doctor, you will likely have much about which to inquire. To ensure that you know what you need to do to produce an infant who is as healthy as possible, you should pose an array of questions to these trained professionals. When writing down your list of first appointment queries, include an array of questions regarding both your health and the health of your budding baby.
What Is My Due Date?
While you likely have an idea as to the month in which your baby will be born, it is helpful to have a more exact date on which you can expect your new addition. When you inquire as to your due date, your doctor will likely ask you the date of your last menstrual period and use a chart to determine your projected due date. After receiving your first sonogram, this date might change as sonogram technicians calculate a due date using measurements of the fetus’s head and belly.
How Much Weight Should I Gain?
The number of pounds you can expect to pack on depends on a number of factors, including your pre-pregnancy weight as well as whether or not you are carrying multiples. While you shouldn’t live and die by the scale when pregnant, it is always helpful to have an idea as to how much weight you should gain. After all, you will have to shed all of these pounds, so you want to avoid gaining them unnecessarily.
What Foods Do You Recommend I Not Eat?
While some foods, such as soft cheese and rare meats, are almost universally banned from pregnant women’s diets, each doctor takes a different stance on some of the less likely food-borne illness culprits, such as lunch meat. Ask your doctor what foods she thinks you should cut out of your diet to ensure that your eating habits don’t put your baby in harm’s way.
What Will My Appointment Schedule Look Like?
You will likely have an appointment each month for the first several months of your pregnancy, then appointments more frequently as your due date approaches; however, the specifics of this schedule vary from doctor to doctor. To ensure that you are ready to meet the demands of your appointment schedule, inquire as to how frequently your doctor needs to see you during your pregnancy.
Where Do You Perform Deliveries?
If you are in love with your doctor, you may elect to stay with him regardless of which hospitals in your area he services, but if you have a particular hospital in mind and your doctor doesn’t perform deliveries there, you may also want to consider selecting a different OBGYN. If you are going to make this change, it is easier to do this early on in your pregnancy, so inquiring of this information at the first appointment is wise.
