Choosing a Care Provider 101 - Mistake not to Make #1

I don't want to hear you say:
“I chose her because she was my OBGYN before I got pregnant.”

This is the most common reason I hear for hiring a care provider that someone ended up clashing with in the end. It seems like such a natural decision or almost not even a decision at all! They have been… in the area… before, and we understandably like to get to know whoever is down there and stick with ‘em for a while. No need to give someone else the down low if we are happy with who we have already; I’m yet to meet a lady who gets excited about her first pap with a new doctor. (actually who gets excited about a pap at all? Much less with someone unfamiliar!)

Therefore it is understandable that I hear a lot of women saying that their doctor “was always nice”, and “respectful when they came to the office”- and the “nurses were great” so they just went along with them for their pregnancy care. After all, they know them, so what questions would they need to ask at this point?

I have also had a lot of women tell me that this was a huge mistake.

There are many more decisions that go along with pregnancy than your typical yearly exam will render. You have testing to think about, blood sugars, urine dips, weight gain, vaginal exams, heart tone monitoring, blood pressures, biophysical profiles, ultrasounds, fluid levels, Group B Strep tests, due dates and possible inductions... and that’s all before labor even starts! How many ultrasounds will your doctor prescribe? Are they all necessary? Do you know how your doctor feels about inductions before 42 weeks? What if you are showing signs of having a large baby? Will your doctor be OK with that, or will he want to schedule an induction?

OK so now we have gotten through the pregnancy and we are onto the labor... Do you want an epidural? Or do you want to try to go natural for as long as you can and then get an epidural? Or are you absolutely not going to have any drugs and want the least amount of medical intervention as possible? Now consider, how does your doctor feel about your choices? Do you even know? Has he ever attended a natural birth before? Does she support the use of alternative comfort measures? Will he even let you get out of bed during labor or will he have you strapped into 5 different machines?

You won’t know the answers to any of these questions unless you ask. And we will get to what questions to ask later (and why asking them is so important). But just do me a solid in the mean time, and don’t blindly hire your current OBGYN for your prenatal care just because you already know that he’s a “nice guy.”