High-Risk Pregnancies and Prenatal Consults/Maternal-Fetal Medicine
Maternal-fetal medicine provides continuous care and consultation for women with high-risk pregnancies, including patients with medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, or heart disease, pregnancies complicated by conditions such as multiple gestation, fetal anomalies, intrauterine growth retardation, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and preterm labor as well as history of pregnancy loss. A corresponding 34-bed neonatal intensive care unit provides services for infants. The division offers specific programs to manage patients who have a history of mid-trimester loss, DES exposure or stillbirth.
The perinatal service is staffed by maternal-fetal medicine specialists and perinatal clinical nurses. The division has an active prenatal diagnosis service including CVS and amniocentesis, and a fully staffed antepartum testing unit providing fetal heart rate testing, ultrasound, Doppler and cordocentesis.
Patients Appropriate for Referral:
Women experiencing medically complicated pregnancies. Providers commonly manage the pregnancies of women who have:
- diabetes
- heart disease
- high blood pressure/preeclampsia
- reproductive cancer
- history of pregnancy loss and preterm labor
- incompetent cervix
- advanced maternal age
- multiple gestation/triplets or more
- babies with abnormalities
- achieved conception through the use of reproductive technologies
- DES exposure
- fetal surgery
