Your Visit to the Colorado Fetal Care Center

A guiding hand to manage your high-risk pregnancy

We understand how scary and stressful it is learning your baby may have a fetal condition, which is why we provide our patients with support services before they even step through our doors. At the Colorado Fetal Care Center, we attend to you and your family's needs, emotional or otherwise, and provide a personalized approach to navigating the entire process, including scheduling.

Once you contact our fetal care center, you'll be assigned a dedicated nurse coordinator who will guide you through your entire experience. They're thoughtful about your time and help you make as few trips to our Center as possible.

Assigned to you from day one, this coordinator will work with you on things like transportation, financial needs and lodging. They'll also coordinate your schedule with each specialist to make appointments as efficient and convenient as possible. In fact, they'll organize your first visit to the Colorado Fetal Care Center so that all of your testing and appointments are on one day.

Your coordinator is just one of the many team members here to support your family, alleviate some of the logistical stress and make sure you and your baby are getting the very best care.

What to expect at your first maternal fetal medicine appointment

From the very beginning, you can expect a multidisciplinary approach to diagnosing, treating and managing your pregnancy and your child's fetal condition.

Your initial visit to the Colorado Fetal Care Center will include a full day of diagnostic testing and evaluation, leading up to a multidisciplinary maternal and fetal medicine consultation.

Through these tests, evaluations and imagings, we will gather the evidence we need to create a comprehensive picture of your baby's fetal condition. Then, our team of maternal, pediatric and fetal care specialists will review every aspect of the evaluation and develop a personalized care plan for both mom and baby.

Evaluations may include various maternal and fetal diagnostic tests, such as:

• Prenatal (before birth) ultrasound
• Fetal echocardiogram (ECHO)
• Fetal MRI
• Diagnosis-specific tests from various subspecialties
• Genetic testing

Once testing is complete, you'll sit down with the full care team to discuss their fetal imaging findings, implications and treatment recommendations. During this first fetal care center appointment, we'll also:

• Help you understand your baby's diagnosis
• Provide a complete picture of what their care will look like
• Connect you with tools and resources so you can make informed decisions that are best for you and your baby
• Provide our delivery recommendations
• Answer every question you have

Your multidisciplinary maternal and fetal care team

By involving every specialist who may be part of your baby's care from the very start, we're able to develop the most responsive and comprehensive care plan that's tailored to your baby's (or babies') fetal condition.

On this first visit to our fetal care center, you'll get to meet and ask questions of the entire care team. From specialists in maternal fetal medicine and cardiology, to genetics and surgery, you meet with everyone all on the same day in the same place.

Each of these team members is an expert in your babies' specific condition and plays a unique role in the coordination of your care, evaluation of your pregnancy, diagnosis of your babies' condition and their treatment.

Learn more about what to expect from your visit in this video:

 

What to expect at the Colorado Fetal Care Center

When you visit our fetal care center for the first time, you can expect a warm welcome from a team whose every team member is dedicated to building the brightest future for your baby (or babies).

From the very beginning, we paint your family a complete picture of the road ahead, explaining what your baby's care will look like before, during and after delivery. And all the while, we guide and support you.

Centralized care for you and your baby

Because we care for you and your babies at every stage of pregnancy, we alleviate some of the stress that comes with managing a high-risk pregnancy, which means fewer drives and days off from work and school.

You can receive prenatal care, get treatment, deliver your babies and see the specialists you and your baby need all in the same place – instead of at multiple locations. And while we attend to mom, we provide the specialized treatments your babies may need – before they're born, at birth and after they've entered the world.

Learn what to expect if you're delivering your baby at our Center:

 

Partners in care

Your local doctor is an integral part of your care team here at the Colorado Fetal Care Center. Our specialists partner with referring providers, keeping them in the loop all throughout the diagnostic and treatment process.

This means care during your pregnancy can remain close to home and you can maintain your relationship with your primary OB or maternal fetal medicine physician, while our team collaborates as a partner.

Care that goes beyond medicine

We understand that managing a high-risk pregnancy can be overwhelming and time-consuming. We're here to lighten your load by offering unique services and resources, such as:

• Care coordinators that:
  • Precisely schedule your appointments so you can see the specialists you and your baby need, without making multiple trips to and from the Center
  • Make travel arrangements for you and your family to get care
  • Help you find temporary housing and lodging if you need to stay in Denver after your procedure
• Breastfeeding and lactation support at the Breastfeeding Management Clinic
• Free valet parking
• Patient drop-off zones
• Private entrance and reception areas
• Family kitchen and respite areas
• Conference rooms for consultation
• Social workers, psychologists and staff whose aim it is to ease the stress and burden of a fetal diagnosis

Resources for the whole family

And as part of Children's Colorado, our patients and their families have access to a variety of family friendly resources:

• The T(w)een Zone where tween and teen-aged siblings can relax and be themselves
• A Family Resource Center that serves as a home away from home where families can relax and recharge. Watch to see how Ronald McDonald House made a difference for Ava’s family.
• Nurse coordinators to schedule your appointments
• Play areas where brothers and sisters can play while mom is with her doctors
• A Family Health Library designed for patients and families
• Family Services team members

Comprehensive care that keeps your family together

Our space is designed so that babies with complex needs can receive immediate care at birth. In fact, our Level IV NICU is only steps away from the labor and delivery rooms and the Maternal Fetal Care Unit (MFCU) where moms rest after birth. This way new moms can visit with their newborns as much as they want. And the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) is just downstairs, so the Heart Institute's nationally ranked cardiologists can care for and treat babies diagnosed with congenital heart defects as soon as they're born.

And if your baby is transported here from another hospital after delivery, you can be transported as well to recover in our maternal unit.

A smooth transition to world-class pediatric care

We provide coordinated care for our patients across all stages of pregnancy and childbirth – from fetus, newborn and infant, all the way to adulthood.

Our world-renowned maternal and fetal care is right here at Children's Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus – under the same roof as nationally ranked pediatric care.

Mothers, children and families have access to all the resources and pediatric subspecialties available at Children's Colorado. So whatever your baby's needs might be, care is never out of reach.

• Find the Colorado Fetal Care Center
• Maternal fetal medicine locations
• Fetal cardiology locations