What will happen at other prenatal visits?

Your provider will check how you are doing and how the baby is developing. He or she will discuss how you are feeling, ask if you have any problems, and answer your questions. During each prenatal visit your provider will weigh you, take your blood pressure, check your urine for sugar, protein, or bacteria, check your face, hands, ankles, and feet for swelling, listening to the baby’s heartbeat, measure the size of the uterus to be sure the baby is growing well. At different times during the pregnancy, additional exams and tests may be done. Some are routine and others are done only when a problem is suspected or you have a risk factor for a problem. Examples of other tests you might have are: chrionic villus sampling of cells from the placenta between the 10th and 12th weeks of pregnancy for information about your baby’s chromosomes and detection of some birth defects, amniocentesis between the 15th and 18th weeks for testing of the fluid around the baby for chromosome information and detection of some birth defects, blood tests, such as the triple or quad screen tests, to check for genetic problems or birth defects, ultrasound scans to check the baby’s growth and health and to look at your uterus, the amniotic sac, and the placenta, blood tests to check for diabetes, nonstress tests that use electronic monitoring to check the health of the baby, and other types of tests using electronic monitoring to check the baby.