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What to bring to your first pregnancy appointment in Singapore

Bring your NRIC or passport, your insurance details if you have them, the date your last period started, and a written list of your questions. If a polyclinic referred you, bring the referral letter too. Everything else can be sorted later.

The four things people forget

• The date your last period started. You will be asked for it, and it is the single most useful thing to have written down before you walk in.
• Your insurance details. The card or the policy number, and the name of whoever holds the plan if it is through work.
• Your own questions, written down. Not remembered. Written. You will forget them the moment someone says a number to you.
• A way to pay that you have actually checked. Card, PayNow, whatever the clinic takes. Ask when you book.

What usually happens

The order varies by clinic, but the shape is common:

1. You register at the counter, and they ask for your NRIC or passport.
2. Your height, weight and blood pressure are usually taken before you see the doctor.
3. You are asked about dates and about your own history. This is where the written notes save the most time.
4. The doctor decides what checks or tests to do, and tells you what happens next. That decision is theirs, not something to research beforehand.
5. You leave with a next appointment and some paperwork. Photograph the paperwork before it goes into a bag.

You will not come out knowing everything. First appointments are mostly about starting the record.

Public or private, the decision you are actually making

This is a decision about process and money, not about medicine. The medicine gets decided by whoever you see.

• Starting at a polyclinic. You are seen locally and referred on when it is time. This is the route with government subsidies attached, and it usually means seeing whoever is on duty rather than the same doctor each visit.
• Going straight to a named gynae, at a restructured or a private hospital. You choose the doctor, you usually see that same doctor each time, and you book around their clinic days. You pay more for that continuity.

Fees, subsidy eligibility and package prices change, and every blog that quotes them is out of date the week after it is published. Read the current figures on your hospital's own website and on the relevant government site, then write your own two numbers down. Those are the only numbers that describe your case.

Ten questions worth writing down before you go

Take five in. These ten are the ones people wish they had asked.

1. What should make me call you before the next appointment?
2. What is the number I call between visits, and who answers it after hours?
3. Which hospital are you attached to, and when do I register there?
4. How often will I be seen from here, and roughly when is the next one?
5. What are you checking today, and when do results come back?
6. How do you send results, and do I need to chase them?
7. Is there anything you want me to change or stop before the next visit?
8. What will today cost, and what can I claim back?
9. Can my partner come to the next appointment, and are they allowed in for scans?
10. What do I need to bring next time?

Question one is the one to ask even if you ask nothing else. It puts the line in your doctor's words instead of the internet's, and it is the question this whole page exists to get you to ask.

Book earlier than you think you need to

Appointments with a named doctor go quickly, and the first date you are offered is often weeks after the date you wanted. Call as soon as you have decided where you want to be seen. It is free to move an appointment and impossible to invent a slot that has gone.

Questions people ask about this

Do I need a referral letter to see a gynae in Singapore?
Ask when you book. Some routes need a referral letter and some do not, and the person on the phone will tell you in one sentence. It is worth the thirty seconds, because paperwork is the one thing that can turn you away at the counter.

How early should I book the first appointment?
As soon as you have decided where you want to be seen. Slots with a named doctor go fastest, and the date you are offered is often not the date you asked for. Booking early costs nothing and an appointment is easy to move.

What should I write down while I am still in the room?
Four things. What they found today, in their words. What they want you to do differently before the next visit. The date and time of the next appointment. The number to call between visits, and what should make you call it.

Do this now

Open your phone notes and write down five questions and the date your last period started. That is the whole preparation, and it takes two minutes.

Next: questions to ask at your check-up, and what the other parent can actually do.