The Antenatal Clinic provides monitoring for both routine and complicated pregnancies. An antenatal day unit and early pregnancy assessment clinic is available from Monday to Friday. We also have midwives specialising in diabetes and drug misuse liaison.
If a consultant leads your maternity care, some of your antenatal visits may be to the Ipswich Hospital antenatal clinic or to a satellite clinic in Felixstowe, Eye, Saxmundham or Stowmarket.
When booked for consultant led care you will likely give birth on Deben the consultant-led ward at Ipswich Hospital where access to obstetric, paediatric and anaesthetic medical teams are available on a 24/7 basis. Midwives continue to provide care in labour but all care plans are made in conjunction with the medical staff on call.
If it is necessary for you to have a planned caesarean section, you will be admitted to Orwell Ward, the consultant led antenatal and post natal ward. All high risk mothers who have given birth on Deben are transferred to Orwell Ward following delivery (and their babies). Orwell is staffed by midwives.
Once you go home, your community midwife will continue to care for you and your baby for 10 days after the baby's birth date (or longer if there is clinical need), in your home or at a local postnatal clinic.