Maternity Services

Across NHSGGC, we provide an antenatal pathway of care, in line with national best practice and guidance. You can expect to have 8 to 10 regular antenatal appointments, including your booking appointment, with your midwife throughout your pregnancy.

Your first ‘booking appointment’ will usually take place before 10 weeks of pregnancy, this is a quite lengthy appointment with your midwife for around one hour. This enables you to share your past medical history, family history and any previous pregnancies and births. The Midwife, with consent, will undertake physical checks including blood tests and can give you advice and any onward referrals.

Your follow up midwifery antenatal appointments will then be scheduled, becoming more frequent as your pregnancy progresses. These appointments enable you to ask questions and raise any concerns that you have, and also allow the Midwife to ensure that your pregnancy is progressing well – this includes measuring the baby’s growth, listening to the baby’s heartbeat, checking your urine, taking your blood pressure and blood tests.

All women and pregnant people in Greater Glasgow and Clyde see Midwives, as is usual for maternity care across the UK. We try to ensure that you see as small a number of Midwives throughout your pregnancy and after the baby is born as possible, to help you get to know your midwife and build a trusting relationship.

Most women and pregnant people opt to have ultrasound scans during pregnancy – usually the first takes place between 12 and 14 weeks of pregnancy and another scan at around 20 weeks. You will be consented for your scans at the time of your booking appointement. We also offer screening for fetal anomalies in early pregnancy and these can be discussed with your midwife.

Some women and pregnant people also need to be seen by other members of the maternity team, including Obstetricians (doctors who specialise in more complex pregnancies and births), Fetal Medicine, Anaesthetists, Physiotherapists, Dieticians, Smoking Cessation support, the Specialist Diabetes Team and Mental Health Teams. These additional services can usually be accessed by referral from your Midwife, with some where you can self-refer.

We offer 24/7 care in our three large maternity units, through our Triage and Maternity Assessment services.

All of your maternity records are electronic and you are able to access your records and a range of information by accessing an app on your phone called Badger Notes.

You will also be offered antenatal classes, where you can meet others who are pregnant and learn about what to expect from labour and birth and the early days of parenting. We aim to provide these as locally as possible to where you live, so your community midwife will tell you about these.

In line with UK and Scottish national guidance and recommendations, once you are in established labour, you will have the continuous one to one support of a Midwife throughout your labour and birth.

In Greater Glasgow and Clyde you have a range of choices about where you would like to give birth. You will have time to talk with your Midwife about where might be the best place for you to plan to give birth. There are three Community Maternity Units (CMUs) in GGC, which are based in Clyde: at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, Inverclyde Royal hospital and the Vale of Leven hospital. As well as providing a range of antenatal care, these units also provide Midwife-led labour, including access to birth pools and postnatal care. Even if you live in Glasgow, you are able to ask to give birth in the community maternity unit at the RAH if you would prefer a midwife led unit birth. We also offer a homebirth service in all parts of GGC, talk to your midwife about whether this might be a good option for you.

Some women and pregnant people are advised that the best place for them to give birth is in an Obstetric led unit, particularly if they have a more complex pregnancy or conditions that mean they are likely to need a higher level of assessment and medical intervention during labour and birth. We have three obstetric led labour wards in Greater Glasgow and Clyde: at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, the Princess Royal maternity in the North of Glasgow and the Queen Elizabeth University hospital in the South of Glasgow. These units provide a full range of labour and birth options, including epidural analgesia and caesarean birth.

If you have given birth in hospital or one of the community maternity units, you will usually stay in with your baby for between 1 and 3 days after the birth. Once you go home, we provide regular home visits from your community midwives for the first 10 – 28 days – depending on your needs – to make sure that you and your baby are doing well and to give any advice or support you need in those first days.

If your baby is born early or is unwell after birth, we have neonatal intensive care and special care units in our three large maternity units, where they can receive the expert care they need.

You can get lots of really useful information about pregnancy, birth, the early days of parenting and the care offered across NHS Scotland in Ready Steady Baby! – which you can access here on the NHS inform website.