Oh! Dr Selma!

We bumped into Dr Selma this morning while we’re doing grocery shopping @ Jusco. I’m so glad to see her that I grabbed her finger so hard and very reluctant to let go. She is like an old friend to me. Guess what… she is the very first person I saw in my life because she delivered me from my mummy’s womb.
Finally, I can have a picture with Dr Selma and that my momento page is now complete.

Timbang! Timbang!

The nurse came to visit us again yesterday and weighed me. I’m now 3.4 kg d …
Something remarkable here is that the nurses take the effort to visit us almost everyday since we came home from the hospital until the 10th day and she came again yesterday on the 20th day. This really impressed us and we knew we made a right choice of hospital and they indeed take good care of us mum & baby. They also give us some valuable advice and answer our questions on the newborn. It saves us a lot of effort, time & $$ to visit the pead.

Finding an obstetrician! (con’t)

Greeting everyone! I hope this blog finds you and family blessed this Christmas. In case you are wondering what the surprise finding is in Khai’s previous post ( Finding an obstetrician! ), read on! Our so-called surprise is that the least sought after (at least from our survey) has turned out to be the most reliable so far. We have not come across anyone who went to General Hospital to see an obstetrician when we asked around and all we had in mind is that it must be a long queue to see a specialist in GH. Apparently, the facts has proved us wrong and we feel sorry of the ignorance and the mis-perception. :p I would share on how well they take care of us in a bit and really encourage you to approach the facility near you.

I first came to the government owned medical service through the community clinic near our place. Back in the very early stage of the pregnancy, I was down with high fever and it lasted for about 2 weeks. One of the possible root causes of it was the dengue fever and I was asked to take the blood test of platelet count every day until the fever is gone. Obviously, the Poliklinik Bayan Lepas, which is less than 1 km away from our house, is the nearest and most convenient for me to go for the blood test. Since then, I also went back to them for regular pre-natal follow-up even after my fever was settled down, although I did go back to see Dr Voon regularly.

I found that the follow-up at the government clinic and Dr Voon’s clinic has complement each other very well in my case because they surface out the issues very early in the pregnancy and get our attention to work on before it’s too late. I was offered the blood test on every visit to the Poliklinik, whereas I have only done once with Dr Voon on the 13th week. The blood test did show that I have anemia in pregnancy with very low Hb. The Poliklinik also supplied me with all the necessary vitamin supplements and monitored my condition closely. One of them is the Iberet, by Abbott, which fixes my problem very effectively. Praise God, I’m back to normal now.

One of the service that we don’t get from the Poliklinik at the early stage is the ultrasound scanning. However, we do get to see the scanning of the baby on our visits to Dr Voon’s clinic instead. The scan also indicates that I have uterine fibroids. With that, the medical officer in poliklinik refered me to the O&G specialist in GH. That is how I ended up in GH.

Well, time  to catch a sleep for mum & baby.;)  I’ll write more about my experience with GH in the upcoming post.

Finding an obstetrician!

Hello!  I am starting this topic which I hope my wife will continue as it would be more of her area of expertise to provide information.

Definition of Obstetrician:

An obstetrician is a physician that specializes in caring for pregnant women through childbirth.  Many obstetricians also train as gynecologists so they are able to give medical advice and treatment concerning a woman’s reproductive system.

An obstetrician closely monitors their patient’s health during pregnancy and delivery. They diagnose fetus abnormalities or health issues of their patient and offer healthy living advice and treatment. They see their patients on a regular basis for health consultations, ultrasounds and any of their patient’s prenatal medical needs including forming a birth plan. The frequency of a patients check up often depends on risk factors and resources.

So we went on our search to find an obstetrician.  The list of hospitals we reviewed in Penang were:

1. Gleneagles Medical Center
2. Loh Guan Lye Specialist Center
3. Adventist Hospital
4. Lam Wah Ee Hospital
5. Pantai Medical Center
6. Island Hospital

Firstly to decide on is whether your spouse is comfortable with a male or female obstetrician.  That does basically eliminates certain hospitals.   Ai Ling prefers a female doctor.

Secondly, decide on which doctor you wish to have.  You have to gather this information by asking around, mainly from those who have gone through childbirth but not too long ago also.  Do be careful with too much information as it does make decision harder.  There will be always one negative remark about any doctor from the pool you draw from normally.

Thirdly, decide on which hospital delivery package you want to take according to your budget.  This also will have impact on the doctor you will select as the hospital with the package you want might not have the doctor you want and vice versa.

Do take note of the items in the delivery package, some hospitals provide a  detail list and some do not, some also charge extra for weekend delivery or public holiday delivery.  Make a comparison chart.   There are the 3 types of delivery considerations: normal, doctor assisted and caesarean.  The former is lowest cost and later is highest cost.  You have to also find out about the doctor delivery preference, some advocates normal delivery, some caesarean.  I don’t think I have to suggest which one is the preferred choice but it is up to the individual couples, more so the wife basically decides.

Also narrow down to 2 or 3 doctors to go see and visit them to get a feel about them yourself.  This might incur some cost but it would be well worth the money spent as it gives you a change to talk to the doctor and find out more about them.

Well, Ai Ling wanted a female doctor so that limited our choices which basically eliminated Lam Wah Ee as all the doctors there were male.  We found the package cost to be high for Gleneagles, Adventist charged extra for delivery on Saturday and public holidays, Island hospital package were considered high also.  So this left us with Loh Guan Lye and Pantai.  We did not really like Pantai even though it was the nearest to our house.  The reason being that the way the doctor clinics are setup are that though they were located in the hospital, they were not part of the hospital and charged separately from the hospital.  Biggest problem is they want cash as informed by Ai Ling.  We did go to see the one doctor there but he does not do delivery and recommended another female doctor.   So we ended up in Loh Guan Lye finally and with Dr Voon who is the female doctor there.  The other doctor is Dr Nicholas Loh and his father.  Only Dr Voon and Dr Nicholas Loh offer delivery package.   We went to visit Dr Voon and found her to be pleasant, friendly, cheerful and bubbly.  She seems to be as excited as Ai Ling during the scanning.  So we decided for her to be the Obstretician of choice.

Next post I or rather Ai Ling will share a surprise finding with you all.