There are many tests and procedures your caregiver may perform or offer you during pregnancy. Some are essential components of your regular pregnancy visits, such as taking your blood pressure, feeling your belly and listening to your baby's heart beat. While others are blood tests, vaginal swabs or urine tests sent to pathology for examination.
The main aim of any pregnancy test is to identify a potential or existing health condition before any obvious physical signs are present and early enough to start treatments to help prevent or minimise the effects of a condition.
Some tests are considered routine, meaning they are usually recommended for all pregnant women. However, others are only used for selected women in certain circumstances or you may decide to decline having the test. A few tests are optional after discussing them with your caregiver.
As more research becomes available and we learn more about the process of human pregnancy, it eventually becomes clearer that some tests which were used routinely in the past don't need to be routine or become obsolete, as there is no clinical benefit in continuing them, such as regular weighing at each visit. However, old habits die hard and many caregivers continue to use them (or women ask for them) because they have become such an integral part of pregnancy care.
We have included most of the general tests you are likely to encounter during pregnancy.
Ultrasounds and
genetic testing are discussed in depth in other sections.
Feeling/measuring your belly, listening to baby
Blood pressure
Urine tests
Weighing
Blood tests - group and antibodies
Iron, platelets and Thalassaemia
Rubella, syphilis or VDRL
Hepatitis B and C, HIV/AIDS
Glucose tolerance test or GTT
Group B Strep or GBS
Pap test
Kick charts
Vaginal examinations