Women's Health

Whether you are a new or experienced parent, our knowledgeable and experienced staff is here to guide and nurture you through your pregnancy to keep you and your baby healthy throughout your pregnancy. With early and regular prenatal care, we identify health problems and minimize risks. Prenatal care can be provided by your own physician or by one of our ob-gyns at NewYork-Presbyterian Medical Group Brooklyn. We offer prenatal classes to provide information and education about childbirth, breastfeeding, and child care.

Prenatal Visits

You can take the best care of yourself and your baby by getting early and regular prenatal care. Your physician will check to ensure you and your baby are healthy at each visit. If there are any problems, early action will help you and the baby. Most prenatal visits will include:

• Checking your blood pressure
• Assessing your weight gain
• Measuring your abdomen to check your baby’s growth (once you begin to show)
• Checking the baby’s heart rate
• Mental health screenings

Prenatal Tests

We offer a full range of state-of-the-art prenatal tests that provide expecting parents with information about their baby’s health and the risk of having genetic abnormalities that can result in congenital disabilities or health problems. Our expert physicians prescribe the appropriate testing and imaging during each trimester of pregnancy to maximize your chances of a successful pregnancy and a healthy baby.

Your doctor may recommend that you undergo one or more of the following:

Laboratory tests

• Noninvasive prenatal testing for chromosomal disorders
• Chorionic villus sampling (CVS)
• Amniocentesis

Prenatal imaging

We maintain the highest quality prenatal imaging standards to provide information throughout your pregnancy. Depending on the details of your unique pregnancy, your doctor may recommend that you undergo one or more of the following imaging tests:

• First-trimester viability assessment
• Nuchal translucency measurement
• Fetal anatomic survey for routine and high-risk pregnancies
• Fetal growth assessment
• Cervical length assessment
• Biophysical profile and antenatal testing
• Amniotic fluid volume assessment
• 3D ultrasound
• Doppler velocimetry
• Placental evaluation
• Fetal echocardiography
• Fetal MRI (referral made to NYP/Weill Cornell Medicine)
• Fetal therapy (such as percutaneous umbilical blood sampling, intrauterine transfusion, fetal shunt placement)

Prenatal genetic testing

NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital offers prenatal genetic testing referrals, allowing parents to diagnose suspected genetic anomalies early in pregnancy. Risk of a potential genetic condition may be first detected through noninvasive blood and imaging tests. These risks are able to be further evaluated with diagnostic tests such as chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and amniocentesis. People may be referred for genetic evaluation before or during pregnancy for various reasons, which include having an advanced maternal age, a prior screening test or family history which indicates an increased genetic risk transmission of an inherited disease, or findings on a prenatal ultrasound that indicates a need for further evaluation.

At NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, our ob-gyns have advanced training and extensive experience in caring for women with high-risk pregnancies and those with complex fetal conditions. Women and infants needing more advanced care have seamless access to the faculty practice of NewYork-Presbyterian & Weill Cornell Medicine’s maternal-fetal medicine specialists who can increase the chance of having a healthy pregnancy and birth. In addition to using the latest diagnostic tools and therapies, this extraordinary team of providers are committed to providing the highest level of care with compassion and concern for you and your baby.

If you have a co-existing medical condition, you can receive care from NewYork-Presbyterian’s renowned adult specialists such as cardiologists and cardiac surgeons, neurologists and neurosurgeons, gastroenterologists, endocrinologists, oncologists, urologists, immunologists, and others. These specialists are in the same medical center, and we can help you access them immediately before, during, and after childbirth, should you or your baby need them.

If you or your baby is found to have a serious medical condition, we can seamlessly connect you to NewYork-Presbyterian’s skilled perinatal care team. From pre-pregnancy medical screening to newborn care, our highly trained teams of perinatologists, neonatologists, maternal-fetal-medicine specialists and pediatric subspecialists provide advanced care to address you and your baby’s needs, including:

• Perinatal screening tests: ultrasound, fetal echocardiography, amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, cordocentesis (fetal blood sampling), and fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
• Comprehensive care for birth defects: congenital heart disease, multiple pregnancies, Rh disease and anemia, bladder outlet obstructions, pleural effusion (fluid in the lungs), abnormalities of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), chest, urinary tract, abdomen, and skeleton.
• Expertise in newborn surgery: Should your baby require surgery due to any perinatal conditions shortly after birth, NewYork-Presbyterian’s pediatric surgery program and subspecialty surgical programs are among the strongest in the region. Whenever possible, using minimally invasive techniques (such as laparoscopy and thoracoscopy) are used, resulting in smaller incisions, less discomfort, and a faster recovery for your baby than open surgery.

Pain management during labor:

We provide state-of-the-art pain management while respectfully considering your individual preferences and desires. Our dedicated team of obstetric anesthesiologists provides 24-hour service with a pre-anesthesia consultation to develop individualized plans to help relieve the pain and discomfort associated with childbirth.

Whenever possible, we try to reduce the need for pharmacologic agents for our obstetrical patients through a multimodal pain management approach that includes a combination of non-opioid medications such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen, regional anesthesia and nerve blocks, and non-pharmacologic management methods – relaxation, visualization, and breathing techniques — to reduce pain and improve our patients’ overall labor and delivery experience.

Labor pain management during C-section:

Our obstetric anesthesiologists are experts in managing labor pain and the provision of anesthesia for Cesarean deliveries. With epidural analgesia, patients are offered patient-controlled analgesia using a computer-controlled pump, which provides some control over how much epidural medication is received. This enables us to meet your pain management needs and keep you comfortable while you are in the hospital.

NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital strongly supports the family’s active participation in caring for the newborn. We encourage patients to keep their newborns at the bedside throughout the day and night (rooming in). We believe families belong together for support and assistance. Many parents have less fear and anxiety when their newborns are rooming in, allowing them to learn as much about their baby’s sleeping and feeding habits as possible before going home. Studies show that infants cry less in their birthing parent’s presence and have lower blood pressure and more stable temperature, pulse, and respiration.

Our well-baby care team comprises attending pediatricians, pediatric residents, pediatric nurse practitioners, mother-baby nurses, and lactation consultants, provides complete care for term and near-term newborns from birth through discharge, including guidance for the parents. Well-baby care includes:

• Complete physical examination of infants upon admission to the nursery and again on the day of discharge
• Assessment and management of breastfeeding mothers and their infants
• Daily evaluation of infants by the attending pediatrician and nursery healthcare team
• Management of infants with common problems such as weight loss, jaundice, and breastfeeding issues
• Performance of mandated New York State screening tests for all infants
• Administration of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine
• Administration of New York State mandated birth dose of vitamin K and erythromycin ointment.

NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital has a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which provides specialized care to babies born at less than 32 weeks gestation as well as babies born with critical illness, at all gestational ages. Our NICU is staffed by neonatologists (newborn care physicians), neonatal nurses and nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists, and other specialists and is designed for babies requiring intensive observation and medical care. Pediatric medical and surgical subspecialists are readily available for consultation and treatment. These experts use the latest technology and therapies to offer critically ill newborns the best chance for survival and high quality of life.

After childbirth, you will have time to recover and bond with your baby in the labor room before being transported to the postpartum unit.

Our postpartum care team is here to empower you with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to continue caring for your baby. We will teach you how to hold and bathe your baby and identify their feeding cues. Whether you want to breastfeed or provide formula, we are here to help. All our nurses are highly trained in providing breastfeeding support, and our onsite lactation consultants are available to assist you if you would like additional guidance. If you choose to formula feed, we will teach you the proper preparation and storage of formula.

NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence has onsite lactation consultants to assess and help breastfeeding mothers and their infants. We offer prenatal classes to provide information and education about childbirth, breastfeeding, and child care.