Prenatal check-ups in China
After an exciting announcement it’s time to get started with pregnancy blogging with a Chinese twist! Since we’ve known about the pregnancy I’ve done bunch of paperwork, chosen the hospital and the doctor for check-ups (but no idea where to give birth!) and had three ultrasounds already.
As I’m married to a local guy, I surprisingly found out that I’m eligible for some free check-ups just like any other Chinese woman in this city! Getting these required quite a lot of paper work, but all was done within a few kilometers from our house. Because we live in the Huangpu district, I also had to choose a local hospital for having prenatal check-ups in order to enjoy the benefits. Luckily my sister-in-law is a nurse and had her baby just few days ago, so she recommended her own hospital and doctor for me.
My first impression of Doctor Xiong wasn’t that pleasant as she was busy and ignored me completely and asked questions about me through my sister-in-law. Luckily I found her to be a nice person during my first official prenatal visit earlier this week. I was a bit afraid that the topic of weight would come up, as she had scolded my sister-in-law for putting up so much extra weight during her pregnancy, but for now she just reminded me to eat as I had lost some weight during my first trimester.
Funny things about seeing the doctor in China is that you are in charge of filing your paperwork and all your test results. You get a A4 booklet where all the information will be written and all the test slips will be glued on during the 9 months of pregnancy. This means that in the end you have a huge bunch of paper to carry around!
Chinese hospitals can seem like a maze sometimes, often requiring running around the hospital and asking nurses where you need to go every step of the way. Getting my self registered for prenatal care would have been almost impossible without my knowledgeable sister-in-law that held my hand through the process. After registering things got much easier as I can just schedule my appointments directly with my doctor through WeChat.
This is all for now, but what aspects of being pregnant in China would you like to read on my blog? Are you interested in the practical things like finding a good doctor or how much it actually costs? Or perhaps you want to know about the cultural differences between being pregnant in China vs. Finland? Let me know your thoughts and wishes in the comments!