Reference card · living document
The vocabulary of UK maternity care. Grows every lesson. These terms are used consistently across every document in this workspace.
| Gestational age | How pregnant she is, counted from the first day of her last period. The only clock the NHS uses. |
| LMP | Last Menstrual Period. The zero point of the gestational clock. |
| Conception age | Time since fertilisation. About 2 weeks behind gestational age. Used by home test kits and almost nothing else. |
| EDD | Estimated Due Date. Set properly by the dating scan; ~1 in 25 babies actually arrives on it. |
| Trimester | Thirds of the pregnancy. First: weeks 1–12. Second: 13–27. Third: 28–birth. |
| Term | Weeks 37–42. Birth in this window is normal, not early or late. |
| Pre-term | Birth before 37 weeks. |
| Post-dates | Past the EDD. Induction is usually discussed around 41 weeks. |
| Midwife | The professional who leads care in a normal pregnancy. Not a nurse, not a doctor's assistant — an autonomous clinician. Your main relationship. |
| Obstetrician | Doctor specialising in pregnancy and birth. Involved if care becomes higher-risk. |
| Sonographer | Runs the scans. Is not there to be your photographer, and may go quiet while concentrating — this is normal. |
| Health visitor | Takes over from the midwife ~10 days after birth. Community-based, tracks the baby's development. |
| Doula | Non-clinical, paid birth supporter. Optional, private. |
| Birth partner | You. A recognised role with a real job, not a spectator with a phone. |
| Booking appointment | The long first midwife appointment, 8–12 weeks. Sets up all care that follows. |
| Dating scan | 10–14 weeks. Confirms the EDD and how many babies. For combined screening it must fall between 11+2 and 14+1 — 20 Oct–9 Nov 2026. |
| CRL | Crown–rump length. Head to bottom, in millimetres. Sets the due date at the dating scan; must be 45.0–84.0 mm for combined screening. |
| Nuchal translucency (NT) | Fluid at the back of the baby's neck, measured on the dating scan. The ultrasound half of combined screening. Not a dating measurement. |
| Quadruple test | Blood-only fallback screening, 14+2–20+0, if the combined test window is missed. Down's and Edwards' only — not Patau's — and less accurate. |
| Chorionicity | With twins, whether they share a placenta. Determined at the dating scan, hard to establish later, and it changes the whole care plan. |
| Combined screening | Optional. Nuchal-translucency measurement at the dating scan plus a blood test, giving a probability — not a diagnosis — for Down's, Edwards' and Patau's syndromes. |
| Anomaly scan | The 20-week scan. Detailed check of the baby's physical development. |
| Fundal height | Bump measured in cm from pubic bone to top of uterus. Roughly matches gestational weeks after 24 weeks. |
| GTT | Glucose Tolerance Test. Screens for gestational diabetes, 24–28 weeks, if higher-risk. |
| Anti-D | Injection given if her blood type is rhesus negative and the baby's may not be. Routine, offered around 28 weeks. |
| NIPT | Non-Invasive Prenatal Test. A maternal blood test offered after a higher-chance combined screening result. Very accurate, no risk to the pregnancy, but still not diagnostic. |
| Amniocentesis / CVS | The diagnostic tests — a needle sample of fluid or placenta. Give a definite answer; carry a miscarriage risk of roughly 0.5% or less. |
| Family origin questionnaire | Asked at booking about both parents' ancestry, to decide whether sickle cell and thalassaemia screening is needed. Clinical, not administrative. |
| FW8 / MATEX | Form signed by the midwife at booking → maternity exemption certificate: free NHS prescriptions and dental care through pregnancy and until the baby is 12 months old. Not the same as the MATB1. |
| Foetus / embryo | Embryo up to ~10 weeks, foetus after. Both mean the same baby. |
| Placenta | The organ that feeds the baby. Grown from scratch for this pregnancy, delivered after the baby. |
| Amniotic fluid | The fluid the baby floats in. "Waters breaking" is this sac rupturing. |
| Braxton Hicks | Practice contractions. Irregular, not progressive. Not labour. |
| Hyperemesis gravidarum | Severe pregnancy sickness — well beyond ordinary morning sickness, and a medical problem needing treatment. Not "bad nausea". |
| Pre-eclampsia | Serious blood-pressure condition of pregnancy. Why her BP and urine get checked at every single appointment. |
| Missed miscarriage | Pregnancy loss with no bleeding or pain — found at a scan. The reason the dating scan carries weight even when nothing feels wrong. |
| Miscarriage | Pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. Affects roughly 1 in 5 confirmed pregnancies, mostly early, almost never caused by anything either parent did. |
| Ectopic pregnancy | A pregnancy implanted outside the womb, usually in a fallopian tube. About 1 in 80. Presents weeks 4–12; shoulder-tip pain, one-sided tummy pain, faintness. A 999 situation — see the red flags card. |
| Early pregnancy unit (EPU) | The NHS service that assesses bleeding and pain in early pregnancy — under 18 weeks at your trust (over 18 weeks it is Maternity Triage) — scans, blood tests, same or next working day. Usually takes phone self-referrals. The number to have saved before you need it. |
| hCG | The pregnancy hormone home tests detect. Peaks around week 9, then falls as the placenta takes over — which is why sickness usually eases from weeks 10–12. |
| Implantation bleeding | Light spotting as the embryo embeds, around the time a period was due. Harmless, but indistinguishable from other bleeding without assessment — so it still gets a phone call. |
| Neural tube | The structure that becomes the brain and spinal cord. Closes by ~week 7 — the reason folic acid is urgent now. |