OB Appointment Weeks 21 - 25

You are past the halfway point! Congratulations! The time between your prenatal appointments may seem to fly and the time you spend with your doctor or midwife may do the same. The actual appointment may be a little shorter because now your doctor or midwife has baseline health information on you and your baby they can spot anything out of the normal with relative ease. Unfortunately, surveys from across the nation show that the average time a doctor spends with his or her patient during a prenatal visit is five minutes, while midwives usually spend a bit more time with patients. The doctor or midwife's nurse or nurse practitioner spends the most time with the expectant mother. If you feel your doctor or midwife is rushing you, don't be shy to speak up and say so. You are paying for their time and they should take as much time as necessary to answer your questions sufficiently and address your concerns.

Your doctor or midwife will continue to check your weight, blood pressure, and size and height of your uterus. In addition to a urinalysis, you will also have a vaginal culture done to screen for beta strep infection. Group B streptococcus (GBS) is a common bacterial inhabitant of the vagina. Many women unknowingly carry the GBS and have no symptoms, yet still run the risk of passing this on to their baby during delivery. This will probably not be the last culture of this type since you can carry the germ one month and not the next. If the test is performed and it shows you carry the GBS germ your doctor or midwife will prescribe a round of antibiotics so that this isn't passed on to your baby.

Sometime between weeks 24 and 28, you will be given a glucose screening test to check for gestational diabetes. If results from this test come back positive, it does not necessarily mean you have gestational diabetes, it simply means you need to have a more accurate test called the glucose tolerance test (GTT).