Centering Your Pregnancy

Throughout my pregnancy I have been listening to a podcast called Pregtastic. It's a podcast out of San Diego, California with a panel of pregnant women sharing their journey through pregnancy and motherhood. Also, each week has a topic related to either pregnancy or parenting. The guest speakers range from doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, birth educators, yoga instructors, and many more. It has been a wonderful source for information for me. I would have never come across this information had it not been for this podcast.

This point leads to one show in particular I was very intrigued by. The topic was 'Centering Your Pregnancy'. Dr. Peter Bernstein, Associate Professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women’s Health was the guest speaker. Centering Pregnancy is a new model of prenatal care that was developed by a midwife. The model of care is rapidly becoming popular among midwives as well as OBs. The way it works is a provider, whether it be a doctor or midwife, forms a group out of the clients he or she has that are about the same length into their pregnancy. So, after your second individual prenatal visit, you would meet with your provider and the rest of the group for your monthly visits. Each visit will have a different topic--breastfeeding, nutrition, etc. And each topic is catered to the stage in pregnancy that the group is at. The meetings are also slightly free form. If a few women have something they are concerned about, they can bring up that topic for discussion. So, in a way the group leads the class. In this way topics that one mother may have never thought about get introduced. Another plus is the advice is not only given from the provider, but from other experienced mothers in the group.

This has got to be better than your typical visit to your OB. I know from experience that I never learned a thing from my doctor. My midwife, on the other hand is wonderful. Our visits are longer than 5 minutes, and we actually talk and I learn things.

So, check out this podcast!!