Obstetrics Assessment
Use when asked to administer, score, or explain an Obstetrics Assessment — a NICE NG201-aligned antenatal risk stratification driving the care pathway — grounded in FormExamples/form-examples; related to prenatal-assessment.
Antenatal obstetric assessment aligned with NICE NG201, stratifying pregnancies into low, moderate, and high risk to allocate care pathway (midwifery-led, obstetrician-led, or multidisciplinary) and to schedule surveillance, screening, and birth planning.
Scoring
Instrument: NICE NG201 Antenatal Risk Assessment.
- Low Risk — no obstetric, medical, or social risk factors → midwifery-led care.
- Moderate Risk — modifiable risk factors requiring obstetric input at key milestones.
- High Risk — significant pre-existing or pregnancy-related pathology → consultant-led/multidisciplinary care.
What it covers
Maternal demographics; obstetric history; medical history (cardiac, hypertension, diabetes, VTE); current pregnancy details (LMP, EDD, dating scan); lifestyle and social factors; screening test results (combined test, GTT, anomaly scan); mental health assessment (Whooley, GAD-2); fetal assessment (growth, position, movements); birth preferences; and care plan with follow-up.
Relationship to prenatal-assessment
This assessment applies a formal NICE NG201 risk-stratification framework to allocate care pathway; Prenatal Assessment is a more general antenatal evaluation covering similar ground with a simpler Low/Moderate/High categorization not explicitly tied to a named NICE guideline. Check which level of formality a given context requires.
Common pitfalls
- Fixing the care-pathway allocation at booking and never revisiting it — risk can escalate during pregnancy (new hypertension, abnormal growth scan); the pathway allocation should be reviewed at each significant milestone, not just set once.
- Skipping the mental health screen — perinatal mental health (Whooley questions, GAD-2) is a required part of NICE-aligned antenatal care, not an optional add-on.
- Treating "Low Risk" as meaning no further monitoring — even low-risk pregnancies still follow a defined midwifery-led surveillance schedule; low risk changes who leads care, not whether monitoring happens at all.
Learn more
- FormExamples: obstetrics-assessment for the full implementation, clinical references, and worked examples.
- Prenatal Assessment for the related, more general antenatal evaluation.