What constitutes perinatal services?
Walsh: Perinatal services are provided by a highly specialized team, including a board-certified physician and a trained nursing staff. This type of care is critical because it’s difficult for premature infants to recover, and if things go wrong at birth, they go wrong very quickly. So it’s imperative to have specially trained personnel who attend to the patient over the course of her pregnancy and who will be on the premises of the medical center ready to step in, if needed, during labor and delivery. What should patients consider when selecting a medical center and physician for peri-natal care? Walsh: I would evaluate the level of staff interaction and how staffers respond to your questions, because you really want to be treated like a person not a number and you want answers to all of your questions. Also, it’s important to ask who will be attending the delivery. You don’t want a situation where the perinatologist or an anesthesiologist is on standby waiting for a call to come to t
