Obestetric history and examination

OBSTETRIC HISTORY TAKINGAND EXAMINATION

History template
Demographic details
• Name
• Age
• Occupation
• Make a note of ethnic background
• Presenting complaint or reason for attending (chief complaint)
History of the present pregnancy
• Gestation, LMP or EDD
• Dates as calculated from ultrasound
• Single/multiple (chorionicity)

• Details of the presenting problem (if any) or reason for attendance (such as problems in a previous pregnancy)
• What action has been taken?
• Is there a plan for the rest of the pregnancy?
• What are the patient’s main concerns?
• Have there been any other problems in this pregnancy?
• Has there been any bleeding, contractions or loss of fluid vaginally?
Ultrasound
• What scans have been performed?
• Why?
• Were any problems identified?


Past obstetric history
• List the previous pregnancies and their outcomes in order
Gynaecological history
• Periods: regularity
• Contraceptive history
• Previous infections and their treatment
• When was the last cervical smear? Was it normal?
Have there ever been any that were abnormal? If yes, what treatment has been undertaken?
• Previous gynaecological surgery

Past medical and surgical history

• Relevant medical problems
• Any previous operations; type of anaesthetic used,
any complications
Psychiatric history
• Postpartum blues or depression
• Depression unrelated to pregnancy
• Major psychiatric illness
Family history
• Diabetes, hypertension, genetic problems,
psychiatric problems, etc.


Social history
• Smoking/alcohol/drugs
• Marital status
• Occupation, partner’s occupation
• Who is available to help at home?
• Are there any housing problems?
Drugs
• All medication including over-the-counter
medication
• Folate supplementation
Allergies
• To what?
• What problems do they cause

Taking a history and performing an obstetric examination are quite different from their medical and surgical equivalents.
Not only will the type of questions change with gestation but also will the purpose of the examination. The history will often cover physiology, pathology and psychology and must always be sought with care and sensitivity.

Etiquette in taking a history

Patients expect doctors and students to be well presented and appearances do have an enormous impact on patients, so make sure that your appearance is suitable before you enter the room.
When meeting a patient for the first time, always introduce yourself; tell the patient who you are and say why you have come to see them.


Where to begin
The amount of detail required must be tailored to the purpose of the visit. At a booking visit, the history must be thorough and meticulously recorded. Once this baseline information is established, many women find it tedious to go over all this information again.

Make sure that the patient is comfortable (usually seated but occasionally sitting on a bed).
It is important to establish some very general facts when taking a history. Asking for the patient’s age or date of birth and whether this is a first pregnancy are usually safe opening questions.
At this stage you can also establish whether a woman is working and, if so, what she does.

Dating the pregnancy

Pregnancy has been historically dated from the last menstrual period (LMP), not the date of conception.
The median duration of pregnancy is 280 days (40 weeks) and this gives the estimated date of delivery (EDD). This assumes that:

• the cycle length is 28 days;

• ovulation occurs generally on the 14th day of the cycle;
• the cycle was a normal cycle (i.e. not straight after stopping the oral contraceptive pill or soon after a previous pregnancy).

The EDD is calculated by taking the date of the LMP, counting forward by nine months and adding 7 days. If the cycle is longer than 28 days, add the difference between the cycle length and 28 to compensate.

In most antenatal clinics, there are pregnancy calculators (wheels) that do this for you

Term is actually defined as 37–42 weeks and so the estimated time of delivery should ideally be defined as a range of dates rather than a fixed date, but women have been highly resistant to this idea and generally do want a specific date.

Almost all women who undergo antenatal care will have an ultrasound scan in the late first trimester or early second trimester. The purposes of this scan are to;
establish dates,
to ensure that the pregnancy is ongoing
and to determine the number of fetuses.
If performed before 20 weeks, the ultrasound scan can be used for dating the pregnancy. After this time, the variability in growth rates of different fetuses makes it unsuitable for use in defining dates.

It has been shown that ultrasound-defined dates are more accurate than those based on a certain LMP and reduce the need for post-dates induction of labour. This may be because the actual time of ovulation in any cycle is much less fixed than was previously thought.

It is important that an accurate EDD is established as a difference of a day or two can make a difference in the risk for conditions such as Down’s syndrome on serum screening. In addition, accurate dating reduces the need for post-dates induction of labour.
In late pregnancy, many women will have long forgotten their LMP date, but will know exactly when their EDD is, and it is therefore more straightforward to ask this.

Taking the history

Social history
Some aspects of history taking require considerable sensitivity, and the social history is one such area.
By the time you have finished your history and examination you should know the following facts that are important in the social history:

• whether the patient is married or single and what sort of support she has at home

Women whose partners were unemployed or
working in an unclassifiable role had a maternal
mortality rate seven times higher than women
whose partners were employed according to the
Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child
Health 2003–2005 (CEMACH).

• generally whether there is a stable income coming

into the house;
• what sort of housing the patient occupies
(e.g. a flat with lots of stairs and no lift may be problematic);
• whether the woman works and for how long she is
planning to work during the pregnancy;
• whether the woman smokes/drinks or uses drugs;

Smoking causes a reduction in birthweight in a dose-dependent way.

It also increases the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth
and neonatal death.
drinking is particularly harmful and can lead to a constellation of features in the baby known as fetal alcohol syndrome.

Enquiry about illicit drug taking is more difficult. Approximately 0.5–1 per cent of women continue to take illicit drugs during pregnancy.
Cocaine and crack cocaine are the most harmful of the illicit drugs taken, but all have some effects on the pregnancy, and all have financial implications


Previous obstetric history
Past obstetric history is one of the most important areas for establishing risk in the current pregnancy. It is helpful to list the pregnancies in date order and to discover what the outcome was in each pregnancy.
The features that are likely to have impact on
future pregnancies include:

• recurrent miscarriage (increased risk of

miscarriage, fetal growth restriction (FGR));
• preterm delivery (increased risk of preterm
delivery);
• early-onset pre-eclampsia (increased risk of
pre-eclampsia/FGR);
• abruption (increased risk of recurrence);

• congenital abnormality (recurrence risk depends

on type of abnormality);
• macrosomic baby (may be related to gestational
diabetes);
• FGR (increased recurrence);
• unexplained stillbirth (increased risk of gestational diabetes).

The method of delivery for any previous births

must be recorded, as this can have implications for planning in the current pregnancy, particularly if there has been a previous Caesarean section, difficult vaginal delivery, postpartum haemorrhage or significant perineal trauma.


Remember that:
• gravida is the total number of pregnancies
regardless of how they ended;
• parity is the number of live births at any gestation or stillbirths after 24 weeks.

when presenting a history, it is much

easier to describe exactly what has happened,
e.g. ‘Mrs Jones is in her eighth pregnancy. She has
had six miscarriages at gestations of 8–12 weeks
and one spontaneous delivery of a live baby boy at
25 weeks. Baby Tom is now 2 years old and healthy’.
You can say
G8P1A6

Past gynaecological history

.The regularity of periods used to be important in dating
pregnancy .
Women with very long cycles may have a condition known as polycystic ovarian syndrome. This is a complex endocrine condition and its relevance here is that some women with this condition have increased insulin resistance and a higher risk for the development of gestational diabetes.

Contraceptive history can be relevant if conception has occurred soon after stopping the combined oral contraceptive pill or depot progesterone preparations, as again, this makes dating by LMP more difficult. Also, some women will conceive with an intrauterine device still in situ. This carries an increase in the risk of miscarriage.


Previous episodes of pelvic inflammatory disease increase the risk for ectopic pregnancy.
The date of the last cervical smear should be
noted.
If a woman has undergone treatment for cervical
changes, this should be noted. Knife cone biopsy is
associated with an increased risk for both cervical
incompetence (weakness) and stenosis (leading to
preterm delivery and dystocia in labour, respectively).

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Previous ectopic pregnancy increases the risk of recurrence to 1 in 10. It is also important to know the site of the ectopic and how it was managed.
Women who have had an ectopic pregnancy should be offered an early ultrasound scan to establish the site of any future pregnancies.

Recurrent miscarriage may be associated with a

number of problems. Antiphospholipid syndrome
increases the risk of further pregnancy loss, FGR
and pre-eclampsia.
Balanced translocations can occasionally lead to congenital abnormality, and
cervical incompetence can predispose to late second and early third trimester delivery.

Multiple previous first trimester terminations of pregnancy potentially increase the risk of preterm delivery, possibly secondary to cervical weakness.


Previous gynaecological surgery is important,
especially if it involved the uterus, as this can have potential sequelae for delivery. In addition, the presence of pelvic masses such as ovarian cysts and fibroids should be noted. These may impact on delivery and may also pose some problems during pregnancy

A previous history of sub-fertility is also important.

The rate of preterm delivery is higher in assisted conception pregnancies,
even after the higher rate of multiple pregnancies has
been taken into account. Women who have undergone
fertility treatment are often older and generally need
increased psychological support during pregnancy.

Medical and surgical history

All pre-existing medical disease should be carefully noted and any associated drug history also recorded.
Previous surgery should be noted. Occasionally
surgery has been performed for conditions that may
continue to be a problem during pregnancy, such as
Crohn’s disease.

Psychiatric history is important to record. These enquiries should include the severity of the illness, care received and clinical presentation, and should be made in a systematic and sensitive way at the antenatal booking visit.

Drug history

It is vital to establish what drugs women have been taking for their condition and for what duration.
In some cases, medication needs to be changed in
pregnancy. For some women it may be possible to
stop their medication completely for some or all
of the pregnancy (e.g. mild hypertension). Some
women need to know that they must continue their
medication (e.g. epilepsy, for which women often
reduce their medication for fear of potential fetal
effects, with detriment to their own health).


Pre-pregnancy counselling is advised for women who are taking potentially harmful
drugs such as sodium valproate.

Family history

Important areas are a maternal history of a
fi rst-degree relative (sibling or parent) with:
• diabetes (increased risk of gestational diabetes);
• thromboembolic disease (increased risk of
thrombophilia, thrombosis);
• pre-eclampsia (increased risk of pre-eclampsia);
• serious psychiatric disorder (increased risk of
puerperal psychosis).

For both parents, it is important to know

about any family history of babies with congenital
abnormality and any potential genetic problems,
such as haemoglobinopathies. If any close family
member has tuberculosis, the baby will be offered
immunization after birth.
Finally, any known allergies should be recorded.
If a woman gives a history of allergy, it is important
to ask about how this was diagnosed and what sort of
problems it causes.


Identifying risk
By the time you have finished the history, you will have
a general idea of whether or not the pregnancy is likely
to be uncomplicated. Of course, in primigravid women,
the likelihood of later complications can be difficult to
predict, but even here some features such as a strong
family history of pre-eclampsia may be present.

Thank you