Your antenatal care and appointments

You'll be offered appointments, including scans and tests, as part of your NHS antenatal care. Your appointments might be in different places, such as hospitals, GP surgeries or community clinics.

How to start your antenatal care

To start your NHS antenatal (pregnancy) care, you need to tell NHS maternity services that you’re pregnant. You can do this by referring yourself for NHS pregnancy care as soon as you know you’re pregnant.

This is so you can get support from a midwife to help keep you and your baby as healthy as possible.

Find out how to refer yourself for NHS pregnancy care

When antenatal appointments happen

You’ll be offered at least 10 antenatal appointments if this is your first baby, and 2 ultrasound scans.

You'll have at least 7 appointments if you’ve given birth before. This is because you usually do not need as many appointments as your first pregnancy.

If you have a partner, they can come to appointments if you would like them to.

You can contact maternity services at any time during your pregnancy if you’re worried about your health or your baby’s health. You do not have to wait until your next appointment.

If you’ve referred yourself for pregnancy care and have not been given an appointment, contact local maternity services to ask for an appointment.

First midwife appointment at 8 to 12 weeks

This is usually the first appointment you have with a midwife. It's sometimes called the booking appointment, and can take around 1 hour.

Questions about you

The midwife will ask questions about you and your health, so they can help plan your care based on your needs and preferences.

You can also ask questions and discuss any concerns.

The midwife will ask about:

the date of your last period
any pregnancies you've had before
any health conditions you have
your mental health
things like exercise, alcohol and smoking
your job if you have one
your home situation
your ethnic background

They may also ask questions to check if they can offer extra support. This can include asking about domestic abuse, sexual abuse and female genital mutilation (FGM).

The midwife will give you information about:

screening tests you'll be offered in pregnancy
your options for giving birth
keeping well in pregnancy
how to contact maternity services if you need to

Health checks

The midwife will ask to check your blood pressure and test your pee (urine).

This is to check for high blood pressure in pregnancy, the pregnancy condition pre-eclampsia and urine infections. You'll also be offered a blood test to check your blood group.

Your maternity notes

Your midwife will give you your maternity notes in an app, book or folder, or on a secure website.

Your notes have your pregnancy appointments and test results, and useful phone numbers like the maternity unit and early pregnancy unit.

Keep your maternity notes with you at all times until you have your baby. This is so healthcare staff can read about your pregnancy health if you need urgent medical care.

11 to 14 week scan

You'll be offered an ultrasound scan to check when your baby is due, check their development and see if you're having more than one baby. It's sometimes called the dating scan.

Screening tests can also happen at this scan, to check your baby's chance of being born with certain health conditions. For example, you'll be offered screening for Down's syndrome, Edwards' syndrome and Patau's syndrome.

It's your choice whether to have this screening.

16 week appointment

The midwife will ask about your health and wellbeing, and answer any questions you have. They'll also:

discuss the results of previous screening tests
give you information about the next scan you'll be offered
ask to check your blood pressure
ask to test your pee

18 to 21 week scan

You'll be offered an ultrasound scan to check your baby's development. It's sometimes called the  20-week screening scan.

Testing for gestational diabetes

If you have a higher chance of having gestational diabetes, you'll be offered testing for this between 24 and 28 weeks.