Antenatal Counselling and Infertility
Should you wish to become pregnant and require any medical advice in advance, please feel free to make an appointment any time.
Commonly recommended to most women who wish to become pregnant is to take a daily Folic Acid tablet, as there is good evidence that this protects the baby from a number of malformations.
Should you have any difficulty conceiving, again, please feel free to discuss this with any of the doctors.
Antenatal and Perinatal Care in Lochgoilhead
Antenatal care is provided by the Dunoon Midwifes. Please contact the midwifes directly if you find you are pregnant. The midwives will liase with us to obtain more medical information but will otherwise usually provide all antenatal care
Normally the arrangements would be as follows
- Please contact the miwives in Dunoon if you are pregnant
- Antenatal booking consultation with your midwive in Dunoon hospital or at home
- Follow-up consultations locally in our health centre, at home or in Dunoon by the midwives
- Admission for delivery in Paisley or - if circumstances permit - in the midwifery units in Dunoon or Vale of Leven
- After your return to Lochgoilhead your GP and the Dunoon midwives will provide follow-up
Sometimes these arrangements might not be suitable. You might require specialist care from one of Glasgow's teaching hospitals or simply have your own preferences in this matter. We will endeavour to come to suitable and safe arrangements.
Home Delivery
While there is some evidence supporting the notion that home deliveries can under some circumstances be reasonably safe, these circumstances are not given in Lochgoilhead.
Safe home deliveries require the presence of a trained midwife and the backup of rapid, highly responsive ambulance services, obstetric flying squads and closeness to high quality obstetric centres for the (few but then often devastating) occasions when things do go wrong after all. None of this is available in Lochgoilhead. Attendance of a midwive might well require a journey of over one hour, 999 ambulances have a response time on good days of 30-45 minutes and a further hour of travel time to the nearest fully equipped obstetric unit. This means that while midwives and GPs will make every effort to help in situations of imminent danger you will be far away from the required specialist care.
All in all it is better to avoid such a situation and not to seek it actively.