The booking visit, which is the first antenatal visit to your hospital/clinic is very important because it allows health care workers to identify any risk factors that may adversely effect your pregnancy.

Feel free to disclose confidential issues such as previous abortions, stillbirths, contraceptives etc.

A detailed history and a comprehensive examination will be done by the medical doctor or midwife.

The booking history briefly comprises of the following:

a) History of the Current Pregnancy:

It is important that a careful menstrual history be taken from a pregnant woman.

Are her menstrual cycles regular or irregular? If it is regular, what is the length of the normal cycle? The date of her last known menstrual period (LMP) should be ascertained. It should be stressed that we are always talking about the 1st day of the last menstrual period.

If the duration of the menstrual period or the quantity of the blood loss has been abnormal , effort should be made to identify the last normal period.It is also important to find out weather her last menstrual period was similar to a normal period. Sometimes women can mistaken a decidual bleeding for a normal menstruation.

Decidual bleeding or implantation bleeding is slight bleeding that takes place during implantation, which is actually 2-3 weeks after the LMP.

Calculation of the EDD (Expected Date of Delivery):

On average the pregnancy lasts for 40 weeks from the date of the last menstrual period.

The expected date of delivery(EDD) can easily be found by adding 9 months and 7 days to the last menstrual period( LMP).

b) History of Past Deliverie (Past Obstetric History)

This is an extremely important  aspect of the history taking during the booking visit. A summary should be made of all previous pregnancies (including stillbirths and abortions).

Pregnancies should be noted in chronological order from the first to the last.

The details of the pregnancy such as the year , place of confinement, antenatal history, duration of pregnancy, weather labour was induced or spontaneous, duration of labour, method of delivery, problems during delivery and in the puerperium. Other important details include the weight, sex, condition at birth and subsequent health and the method of feeding of the baby should be recorded.

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