1. Planning your pregnancy
  2. Your pregnancy care
  3. Your birthing choices
  4. Private postnatal rooms
  5. Your antenatal classes
  6. Meet our team

Your Pregnancy Care

The first stage of your journey to motherhood is your pregnancy care. This is sometimes known as antenatal or maternity care and is a series of appointments to check on your health and the health of your baby.

Our antenatal care is led by dedicated teams of midwives who are passionate about empowering you to take informed choices throughout your pregnancy journey. Personalised care is at the heart of everything we do. 

So in addition to support from your midwife, you will have access to:

  • Our award winning Parent Portal run by our Birth and Beyond team, full of resources and information bespoke to us. Ask your community midwife for your joining QR code.
  • Free of charge midwife led antenatal classes
  • Free of charge pregnancy App, Badger Notes with access to an information library
  • 24-hour midwife led traige line, Call a Midwife, for pregnancy, labour and caring for your baby
  • Co-ordinated clinical and maternal mental wellbeing expertise for personalised care

Routine antenatal appointments are provided in maternity hubs and the hospital’s antenatal clinic. Your ultrasound scans will take place at the hospital based antenatal clinic.

We provide pregnancy, birthing and postnatal care across Hampshire, Surrey, and West Sussex.

Your Care During Busy Periods

At the Royal Surrey maternity unit we strive to consistently provide the safest and highest quality maternity care.

We know that babies do not always arrive when planned and therefore it is difficult to predict when our service will experience very busy periods. During times of peak activity there is a risk of delays to service provision which could impact the quality of care our patients receive.

We are aware that as expectant parents you choose where you would prefer to receive your maternity care. If the senior midwifery and medical team feel that there is a risk to the safety of families in our care at these peak times, then we seek support, known as ‘mutual aid’. This means we may ask you to move to another site in our local system or area.

These reasons may include; no bed available for your admission, not enough midwifery staff available to provide the one to one care for all women in labour, prolonged delays in the induction of labour process or being unable to accommodate all of the planned caesarean sections.

You may also be asked to move to another hospital site if your baby needs a level of special care not provided by your hospital of choice. This will depend on the health, condition and maturity of your baby before it is born.

We work together with our colleagues across the local hospital trusts as one system to provide maternity and neonatal care across Surrey Heartlands. These include Ashford and St Peters, Epsom site of Epsom and St Helier, Surrey and Sussex. We also liaise closely with Frimley Park Hospital as our neighbour. If you would like to learn about how we work together please visit the Surrey Heartlands website for further information Women and maternity - ICS.

In the majority of cases you will receive the care you need from our hospital but we feel it is important that you are aware that in exceptional circumstances you may be asked to move to another hospital site.

We will always aim to give you the care you need from the hospital site of your choice and we understand that changing hospitals can be unsettling and inconvenient. We will only ask you to move to another hospital if it is safe to do so, and after full discussion with you. If a transfer is required, our staff will support you throughout the process.

 
Weeks of pregnancy What you can expect at this appointment

Booking appointment before 11 weeks 
  • Information on diet and lifestyle, pregnancy care services, maternity benefits.
  • Measure your blood pressure, height and weight, calculate your BMI.
  • Test your urine for the presence of protein.
  • Offer screening tests, ensuring you understand what is involved before you decide to have any of them.
  • Discuss schedule of vaccinations: Flu, Whooping Cough and RSV.
  • Find out if you need additional care.
  • Offer of help to stop smoking.
  • Offer of an ultrasound scan for Nuchal Translucency and to estimate when your baby is due.
  • Offer ultrasound scan at 21 weeks to check the physical development of your baby.

16 weeks 
  • Measure blood pressure and test your urine.
  • Review and discuss results of all screening tests.
  • Consider an iron supplement if you're anaemic.
  • Whooping cough vaccination offered.

21-23 weeks 
  • Ultrasound scan to check the physical development of your baby. 

25 weeks 

28 weeks 
  • Measure blood pressure and test urine.
  • Use a tape measure to measure the size of your uterus.
  • Blood screening test to check for anaemia, antibodies and blood glucose level.
  • Book further blood tests if required e.g. glucose tolerance test.
  • Anti D injection offered if Rhesus negative.
  • RSV vaccination offered.

31 weeks 
  • Measure blood pressure and test urine.
  • Use a tape measure to measure the size of your uterus.
  • Review results of screening tests taken at 28 weeks.

34 weeks 
  • Review, discuss and record the results of screening tests from the last appointment.
  • Use a tape measure to measure the size of your uterus.
  • Measure your blood pressure and test your urine for protein.
  • Provide you with information about preparing for labour and birth, including how to recognise active labour, ways of coping with pain in labour, and your birth plan.

36 weeks 
  • Use a tape measure to measure the size of your uterus.
  • Measure blood pressure and test urine.
  • Check to see if your baby is head first (presentation).
  • Discuss the options to turn your baby if it is feet/bottom first (breech).
  • Review results of screening tests taken at 34 weeks.

38 weeks 
  • Measure blood pressure and test urine.
  • Measure the size of your abdomen.
  • Check presentation your baby.

40 weeks 
  • Measure blood pressure and test urine.
  • Measure the size of your abdomen.
  • Check presentation of your baby.

41 weeks 
  • Measure blood pressure and test urine.
  • Use a tape measure to measure the size of your uterus.
  • Check presentation of your baby.
  • Discuss option of membrane sweep.
  • Discuss induction of labour.

The majority of women will have no complications in pregnancy and will only see a midwife. If you have an existing medical condition or something changes during your pregnancy, you will be paired with a named consultant. This may mean that you have additional appointments.

We have a team of ten obstetric consultants, each with different interests and expertise in pregnancies that are identified as high risk. Consultant clinics are held at the hospital site, Cranleigh Maternity Hub and the Bordon Hub. We also have two consultants who undertake foetal medicine scan sessions each week.