Routine weighing during antenatal visits.

Patient-reported side effects of lamotrigine during routine clinic visits.

Tailoring antenatal visits: quality over quantity.

Editor – The article by Lumbiganon et al. (1), which describes Thailand’s decision to reduce the number of antenatal visits from approximately eight to five, based on evidence gathered by WHO (2) that fewer visits have no adverse consequences for the woman or her baby, raises several points that require clarification. First, the article reports that in the original research: “Some women in the ...

Acceptability of antenatal screening for depression in routine antenatal care.

OBJECTIVE The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) is generally recognised as a valid, reliable, cost-effective and simple tool to implement within routine care, however there is controversy regarding the acceptability of screening for depression. This paper aims to examine how acceptable women find (1) completing a battery of questionnaires, including the EPDS and (2) receiving feedback...

Antenatal care packages with reduced visits and perinatal mortality: a secondary analysis of the WHO antenatal care trial - Comentary: routine antenatal visits for healthy pregnant women do make a difference

The practice and timing of routine antenatal visits for healthy pregnant women, introduced arbitrarily and without evidence of effectiveness, have become entrenched in obstetric practice over the last century. In 2001 the large, cluster randomized WHO Antenatal Care Trial concluded that a goal-orientated package of antenatal care with reduced visits seemed not to affect maternal and perinatal o...

Cost-effectiveness of routine antenatal varicella screening.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of routine antenatal varicella serologic screening of pregnant women with negative or indeterminate varicella histories. METHODS Routine antenatal varicella screening was evaluated using a decision analytic model. Outcomes were varicella cases, deaths, and life-years. Probabilities were derived from the literature, and sensitivity analysis was perf...