Congratulations on your pregnancy. Your first appointment with the Kingston maternity team is a booking appointment with a midwife.

About the booking appointment

This will be either at Kingston Hospital maternity unit or in a local clinic such as a children’s centre, health centre or your GP surgery. At Kingston Hospital, you should arrive at least 30 minutes before your appointment to allow for parking and registering at reception.

If you are more than 10 minutes late, we may not have time to see you. If so, we will send you details of a new appointment for another day.

This appointment will take about one hour.

Please note, your employer is required by law to give you time off for pregnancy care.

Partners are welcome

You are welcome to bring friends or partners to your appointments. However, at your 16-week appointment, the midwife will prefer to see you alone and anyone with you will be asked to wait outside for a few minutes.

At the appointment

Checks and tests

At this appointment, we will do a few checks, including:

  • blood tests
  • a urine test
  • checking your weight and height
  • measuring your blood pressure.

We will also offer you several screening tests. These are done using a sample of your blood. In some cases, we may ask the baby’s father to have a blood test to check for inherited conditions.

Planning your care

We want to give you the support you need early in your pregnancy. So, your midwife will ask you a few questions and discuss your care.

It is important for us to find out what you want to know and for you to talk about your own feelings and preferences. You too may have lots of questions to ask us. It often helps to write down what you want to say in advance, as it is easy to forget once you are there.

At any time during your pregnancy, you can discuss your options of where you want to give birth.

Your midwife will discuss an individual plan of care with you. This will be based on your previous and current medical history and pregnancy history, as well as any social and mental health needs.

We will give you your maternity notes. You should keep these safe and bring them to every antenatal and scan appointment.

Information about pregnancy

At the booking appointment, we will give you lots of information, including details about:

  • our pregnancy care and classes
  • breastfeeding workshops
  • maternity and paternity benefits
  • planning your labour
  • where to have your baby.

We recommend you look at the following information.

Contact information

If you have problems in attending your appointments, contact us using the details listed here.

Telephone:

020 8934 2290

Email: khn-tr.maternityreferrals@nhs.net