Pediatrician?

[Amythyst]

So, I read online somewhere that I'm supposed to get a pediatrician lined up BEFORE the baby is born... is that true? If so, how do you go about it? Do you just call them up and tell them you're pregnant and want to use them?

I heard that the pediatrician is supposed to be there at your birth to examine the baby?

The whole thing confuses me a little bit and my OB didn't mention it or tell me about it...so wanted to ask you guys.

Do I just look one up on my health care website and call them?

 

[Aliop]

If we have a preference we write their contact details on our hospital paperwork otherwise you get allocated one when you deliver based on who is on at the time. You can change afterwards if you don't like the one you end up with at birth/discharge. We're in Australia.

 

[zorak]

I'm in the US and was automatically allocated one when baby was born. You are free to change to a preferred pediatrician at any time but we've had no need.

 

[Kitteh_Kat]

It really depends on the group/hospital/etc. We chose a pediatrician before the birth, but when we were in the hospital the on-duty pediatrician took care of DD while we were there. They just documented the chosen pediatrician on the paperwork as "baby's doctor". When we got home we called and made a one week appointment with the pediatrician for the first check-up.

Some people interview pediatricians before birth and all that jazz... I just looked on the website and chose the one that sounded like they would be a good fit with our family. She didn't find out we picked her until we showed up for the one week appointment.

 

[brittany12]

i had this same question.

here all you do is tell the hospital (they will ask you who you want to use) the name of the pediatrician you want to use and they will have them come check out baby and tell you how many days after you are home to bring baby into their office ot be seen. I even called the pediatrician that we intend to use and confirmed this. You can also have a consult appointment with them before giving birth if you want to meet them and make sure you like them.

 

[sippy1989]

I'm in Canada, so not sure if it is different but I just asked my midwife this question yesterday. She told me that paediatricians no longer see healthy/ average babies and that your family doctor is the one who would assume the role of babies doctor. She said a paediatrician is more if the baby needs special care.

 

[mod19]

Following. I just heard this this week as well. Completely forgot to ask today as other things happened at the appt.

 

[MrsKChicago]

I'm in the US. I looked at who my insurance would cover, and picked a few that looked promising. Since the insurance website doesn't tell you much, I basically looked at what neighborhood or suburb they were in, and made some guesses as to whether we'd click and have similar philosophies based on the demographics where we were located. Once I had a short list, I checked out websites, and since they offer free "meet the doctor" appointments for prospective clients, we met up, asked a few questions, and figured out what the procedure was if we wanted them to be our pediatricians (there are four at this practice, so we can rotate, or try to see one of them as consistently as possible). We happened to get on well with the first group, but if we hadn't we'd have interviewed a couple more.

Ours have permissions at the hospital where we're giving birth, so we're supposed to just list them on our paperwork, the hospital will call the practice, and they'll check on him at the hospital after the birth, and that's how they'll know we picked them. If they didn't have permissions at our hospital, our post-birth check up would be done by one of the pediatricians on staff there, and we'd just call the pediatrician group to set up appointments.

 

[luz]

I called around to local pediatrician offices and asked if any of them were accepting new patients, when i found a practice that was i told them i'd like to bring my baby there after they were born. When i was in the hospital they asked who my pediatrician was and they sent them in to check out the baby.

My little brother didn't find one before his baby was born, and at the hospital they just sent in a pediatrician to check out the baby.

 

[Amythyst]

Luz, yea that seems to be how it works for me as well. I asked the doctor straight out today and she finally explained it (I hate when I have to drag information out of the doctors).

She said that the hospital has on staff pediatricians and they will check out the baby upon delivery and I don't have to have the actual doctor I want there. They will just ask me for the name and practice that I want and will note it on my paper work.

I went to my insurance company's website today and found a pediatrician's office right up the road from our house and just called them to make sure they were accepting new patients... they also told me after I'm discharged from the hospital, I just call them up and schedule an appointment which will happen about 24-48 hours after we bring him home.