Knowledge Centre · Patient guide
Your Antenatal Visits, Explained
What happens at each visit from booking to birth, and why small checks, done often, keep you and your baby safe.
Every visit on your schedule has a purpose. None of them is a formality. This is what each one is for, and roughly when it happens.
The schedule
| When | Visit | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Weeks 6–8 | Booking visit and dating scan | Your full history, baseline blood tests, blood pressure, and an ultrasound that confirms your dates. You leave with your personal care plan. |
| Weeks 11–13 | NT scan | A screening scan for chromosomal conditions, often with a blood test. It is your choice. We explain what it can and cannot tell you first. |
| Weeks 16–17 | Antenatal check | Blood pressure, urine, your blood results, and your questions. |
| Weeks 20–22 | Anomaly scan | The most detailed scan of your pregnancy: baby’s organs, spine, heart, growth, and the placenta. |
| Weeks 24–28 | Glucose screen | A blood test for diabetes in pregnancy, common and very manageable when found early. |
| Weeks 24–34 | Antenatal classes | About three sessions: labour and birth, feeding, and the first weeks at home. Partners welcome. |
| Weeks 30–31 | Growth check | Baby’s size and position, and your blood pressure. Visits become more frequent from here. That is deliberate. |
| Weeks 34–35 | Birth preparation | Your birth plan, discussed and written down where your whole team can see it. |
| Weeks 36–37 | 36-week review | Baby’s position confirmed and the final plan agreed, with you. |
| Weeks 38–40 | Weekly checks | Short, frequent checks until baby arrives. |
Who you will see
Your care is midwife-led and medically governed. Midwives are qualified professionals in their own right: trained, registered and experienced in running antenatal care and conducting normal deliveries. The obstetrician’s time goes where it changes outcomes: your booking, key scans and reviews, and any point where your risk changes. That is by design, not by shortage.
When schedules move
We run a clinical service, and clinical need comes first: a woman in labour or an emergency can take precedence over a scheduled low-risk visit. If that affects your appointment, we tell you as early as we can and rebook you quickly. The same protection works in your favour. If you are ever the urgent case, you go first.
Why so many small visits?
Regular small checks are how problems are found early, while they are easiest to manage. That is the whole logic of antenatal care: not one big appointment, but many small ones, each looking for specific things at the stage they matter.
Make it yours
The pregnancy companion turns this schedule into your own, with real dates calculated from your due date, and space for the questions you want to bring to each visit.
If something is not right, tell us
Your feedback is not a courtesy. It is how this service improves. If anything about your care is not right, tell us straight away: your team first, or WhatsApp 071 224 2788. A named person takes ownership of your concern, and our target is a same-day response. Compliments help too. They tell us what to protect.
Your next step
If you are pregnant and want this schedule run properly, by one team, for one agreed fee:
Free, and yours to keep Work out your due date and see your visit dates →
Prices are what you pay, not an estimate. We confirm your own fee after a short eligibility and affordability check, and there is no obligation.
Rather just talk it through?
Tell us what you have read and what you are worried about. We call you back. You do not need a referral, and nothing is booked until you say so.