What is antenatal care?
Antenatal care is defined by the care and help you will receive during your pregnancy from your doctor and other healthcare professionals.
Do I need antenatal care?
Antenatal care is important to help you understand how to best care for yourself and the growing life inside of you during the 9 months of pregnancy.
You will learn about the health and development and progress of your baby from week to week and your midwife will carry out regular checks to make sure that you and the baby are in good health.
What does antenatal care involve?
Antenatal care in Spain is usually offered by health centres and varies between regions in Spain.
Your local health centre or Centro de salud will where a midwife will take your medical history to complete your cartilla de embarazo - your pregnancy record. Depending on your doctor's surgery, there may also be a community midwife attached to the surgery.
Initially you may have blood tests to check for HIV/AIDS and infections such as Syphillis and Hepatitis and your first scan will be at the earliest around 8 weeks.
Antenatal Classes
Antenatal classes may be offered by your local health centre and you will be put in a class with other mothers who are at a similar stage of their pregnancy.
Antenatal classes are for both you and your partner and will teach you more about all aspects of your pregnancy and labour and early baby care in addition to giving you the chance to ask any questions you or your partner have. Topics during classes can cover anything from the correct breathing techniques to adopt during labour to the choice of pain relief available in Spain during labour.
Where to now...
Visit our Trimester 1 section for an idea of how you and your baby are growing from week to week.
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