Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
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Painless delivery (or delivery with minimal pain)
For pregnancies complicated with heart disease, painless delivery using epidural anesthesia may be chosen to protect heart function. Our hospital handles many deliveries for pregnancies complicated with heart disease. We have expertise in providing painless deliveries. We provide painless deliveries for patients who request them.
Complete evaluation for fetal heart disease
We provide prenatal screening for fetal heart disease.
Screening is provided for pregnant women during weeks 24-34 of pregnancy
Details about screening
Outpatient procedure
Complete evaluation for fetal heart disease is listed as a service provided in our outpatient clinic. This service is scheduled within the specific time frames in the outpatient service. Appointments for this service are made by each patient's regular healthcare facility through community liaison offices. At our outpatient clinic, physician in charge of patients perform fetal heart ultrasound. If an issue is detected during the screening, patients will continue to be treated at our hospital. If there is no abnormality, patients will go back to the referring healthcare facility.
Inpatient procedure
Appointments are made in the same way as for outpatient procedures.
Evaluations are scheduled for 2 days with an overnight on Thursday and Friday to incorporate the fetal heart ultrasound screening. On Thursday ultrasound screening is performed by prenatal care specialists. On Friday fetal heart ultrasound screening is performed by physiological testing technicians.
Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT)
For information about NIPT, please see here.
Karushio (Low-sodium) Celebratory Meal
Many women who deliver at NCVC have heart or cerebral blood vessel complications. After delivery, most patients continue inpatient or outpatient treatment for their condition. Of course, it is most important to give birth without any problems. Safety is even more prioritized for high-risk pregnancies and medical management needs to be more strict than usual. However, pregnancy and delivery are happy events for women and their families; it is not different for patients at this center who deliver under strict medical management.
At many facilities dealing with deliveries, a special celebratory meal is given to new mothers to celebrate their accomplishment and congratulate them for giving birth. In our division, we had been thinking about expressing our congratulations in the form of a celebratory meal for patients who have gone through pregnancy and gave birth despite more risks than in normal pregnancies. However, a regular celebratory meal cannot be provided to our patients because the salt and calorie content needs to be restricted for many patients.
Meanwhile, the center has been promoting its Karushio Project, a new salt reduction method. Even though less salt is used, it is used in a way that brings out umami flavor. Meals for inpatients have been designed based on this concept. As part of this Karushio Project, the center started to provide a special celebratory meal by improving the regular hospital meal one step further, starting in April 2016. Many patients who have had this meal gave a favorable response. This Karushio Celebratory Meal is provided to patients after delivery with congratulating messages from the staff members of the perinatal ward and the nutrition management office once the patient's condition has settled down. In addition to providing safe medical care, we would like to send our good wishes to our patients at the time of this major life event.
last updated : 2021/10/01