Group Medical Visits for Prenatal Patients

The prenatal period of a familiy's life is an ideal time to join with others who are experiencing similar body, family and couple changes.  It is also a time that involves continual monitoring of the physical and emotional health of mother and child. Thus, group medical visits are ideal for prenatal patients. Research indicates that group medical visits lower risks associated with labor and delivery. (who has this citation?)

The trick with residency training is conducting group medical visits and not taking continuity patients away from resident colleagues. Options include having 2-3 core residents share the group visits.  At Maine Medical Center, pregnant patients are seen in a group medical visit during their obstretrics intake appointment.  After this they are seen by their physician on a 1:1 office visit for the duration of their pregnancy.

In private or group practices, a Centering Pregnancy Group Medical Visit may be run primarily by office staff or shared between 2-3 physicians. This is very useful if these 2 or 3 physicians are the ones who cover the labor delivery service for each other, minimizing the chance that patients labor and delivery will be managed by someone the parents do not know.

The Centering Pregnancy Program is a standardized group medical visit model for pregnant patients and their families (see Centering Pregnancy section below).

Baldwin K. (2006) Comparison of selected outcomes of CenteringPregnancy versus traditional prenatal care.  JMWH, 51(4): 266-272.

Ickovics J, Kershaw T, Westdahl C, Rising SS, Klima C, Reynolds H, Magriples U. (2003) Group prenatal care and preterm birth weight: results from a matched cohort study at public clinics. (2003) Ob & Gyn, 102 (5, part 1): 1051-57.

Below are useful tools for conducting group medical visits with prenatal patients

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