Questions worth asking at your antenatal appointments.
Most women leave an appointment with at least one question still in their pocket.
Not because they forgot it. Because the appointment moved fast, or the answer to the first question opened up three more, or it became clear somewhere around minute eight that there wasn't room for the thing they'd actually come in about.
So this is a list you can take with you. Save it, screenshot it, write the ones that matter onto your yellow card. Do whatever you need to do to walk in with your questions already decided, because working out what you want to ask while someone is taking your blood pressure is harder than it sounds.
Before you go in
Pick your top three, and ask the most important one first.
Appointments have a shape, and the questions saved until the end are the ones that get answered while you're both standing up. If something matters, it goes first.
Write them down. Not because you'll forget, though you might. Because a written question is harder to wave away than a spoken one, and because it signals that you came in with something specific.
When something is recommended
This is where the useful questions live. A recommendation arrives sounding settled, and it's genuinely hard to interrupt one.
Q. What is this for?
Start here. Not what it is, what it's for. What is it looking for, or preventing, or treating.
Q. If I agree to this, or decline it, does anything else change in my care or my options?
Some decisions that are presented as routine have a real impact. A positive result may limit your options about where you give birth and with whom. It may lead to other tests, or to further complex decisions. Saying no can also open up new recommendations, often for more monitoring. These follow-on effects may not seem significant to your care provider, and they may not seem significant to some women. They may be very significant to you.
Q. Is this a recommendation, or a requirement?
Ask this one. Almost everything in maternity care is a recommendation, and the language often doesn't make that clear. "We'll book you in for" and "I'd suggest" can mean the same thing, and you can't tell from the outside which you're being offered. There are very few absolutes in maternity care. There are a lot of things so ingrained in the average woman's pregnancy that they stop looking like a choice and start looking like what's simply done.
Q. What happens if I wait?
Different from declining. Sometimes the honest answer is that nothing much happens and you can think about it for a week. Sometimes it isn't. Either way you've learned how time-sensitive the decision actually is, which is usually the thing you need to know.
Q. What are the alternatives?
Including the ones that aren't offered here. If there's more than one path, this is a good way to find it.
Alternatives often aren't offered, because clinical recommendations and policies are uniform by design. Staff working for a hospital or health service have a duty to you and a very real legal responsibility to work within local guidelines. Giving your care provider an opening to explore alternatives can invite a much richer conversation.
You may also find other women's experiences worth hearing. There are so many different ways women move through pregnancy care, and the variety won't give you a clear direction, but it may give you the confidence to ask for more.
Q. What happens if I say no?
You're allowed to ask this without having decided to say no. It tells you whether you're at a fork or a formality.
Sometimes clinicians, both midwives and doctors, will strongly recommend something, and if you decline you may be asked to co-write a document setting out what was discussed and how you came to decline it. This can feel stressful. It doesn't mean they'll stop caring for you as well as they can. It means your decision isn't the one their local policy supports, and a clear record of their advice protects them in an audit, or if you're unhappy about the choice later.
When you get a result
Q. What does this mean for me?
Ideally the potential impact was explained before you had the test, but once a result is in front of you there are often new thoughts and new concerns, and you may simply need to go over the same ground again now that the answer is real.
Q. Does this change anything about my care?
Some results change the plan. Most don't. Knowing which kind you've just been handed saves a fortnight of quiet worry.
Q. When would you want to check this again?
Useful because it tells you how closely something is being watched, which tells you how concerned anyone actually is.
About your care itself
Q. Who will I see next time?
Worth asking early. If the answer is that it varies, you can plan for that, and you'll know to bring your own notes rather than relying on someone else's memory.
Q. Who do I call at two in the morning, or if I need urgent help?
Ask this before you need it. Get the actual number.
Q. What are my options for how and where I give birth here?
Ask this in the first trimester if you can. Some choices close early, and models of care fill up months before anyone mentions them.
If a service says it offers something specific, a waterbirth for instance, ask a specific question about it. "How many waterbirths have you attended in the last year?" will tell you more than the brochure will.
Q. Is there anything that would rule any of those options out for me?
The important follow-up. It surfaces assumptions being made about you that you might not know about yet.
Later in pregnancy
Q. What is your usual practice for pregnancies past forty weeks?
Ask at booking, or even at thirty weeks, ideally not at 39 weeks. There'll be a usual approach, and you'll want to have thought about it before you're in the middle of it.
Q. What would need to happen for a caesarean to be recommended?
Not because it's likely. Because understanding the thresholds in advance is much easier than understanding them in a room where something is going wrong.
Q. What does the first hour after birth usually look like here?
The answers vary more than most women expect, and this is the hour that's hardest to advocate for from the inside.
If you don't get an answer, or the answer doesn’t feel clear even after the explanation.
You can ask again. You can say you didn't follow that, and could they say it a different way.
You can ask for time. "I'd like to think about it and let you know" is a complete sentence.
You can ask for it in writing, or ask where you can read more.
If the answer is that there isn't time today, that's worth knowing too. It isn't a comment on you, and it isn't a reason to stop asking.
One last thing
Nobody asks all of these. That isn't the point of the list. The point is that you go in having decided what you want to know, instead of working it out on the way home.
If you'd like longer than fifteen minutes to work through any of it, that's what I do. I'm Jen, a Registered and Endorsed Midwife in Paddington, the Lower Blue Mountains, and online across Australia. Appointments run 45 to 90 minutes, and you can bring the whole list.
