Though most women experience a healthy pregnancy, sometimes pregnant moms and growing babies have a higher risk for health problems. Central Maine Healthcare provides care for every kind of pregnancy, with an emphasis on the best care and technology to help you get through the challenges so you can have a healthy birth and baby.
If you’d like to know whether your pregnancy might be high-risk, talk with your obstetrician. We want you to have the best outcomes, so we take precautions to ensure that everything is developing in a healthy way.
Extra Special Care for You and Your Baby
We offer the most up-to-date services, including maternal and fetal screening, diagnostic testing, and risk consultations. We offer the following specialized services:
- Targeted ultrasound: This is a special ultrasound that helps to capture images of your growing baby to detect any abnormal development.
- Amniocentesis: This test helps us to identify genetic conditions your baby might have, as well as detect abnormalities of the brain or spinal cord. We take a sample of the amniotic fluid that is around your baby, usually after your 15th week of pregnancy, then process it in the lab to reveal any issues.
- Cervical length measurement: Your doctor might want to determine if you’re at risk for preterm labor by using an ultrasound to measure the length of your cervix.
- Lab tests: There are several lab tests your doctor might want to run. One specific test will check for preterm labor by taking a swab of vaginal secretions to look for fetal fibronectin which increases the chance of preterm labor.
- Biophysical profile: We can check on your baby’s well-being by monitoring the fetal heart rate and using fetal ultrasound.
Neonatal Intermediate Care Unit (NICU)
As added support for high-risk pregnancies, we offer a specialized neonatal intermediate care unit (NICU) to monitor your new little one and to offer extra help for those babies who need it. Whether a baby is born early (premature) or is born with special needs, we have the physicians, nurses, and technology to give you peace of mind. Located at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, the NICU is just a short drive for those giving birth at Bridgton and Rumford hospitals.
