Maternal Fetal Medicine

Services available

We specialise in caring for women with:

• health conditions – before, during and after pregnancy
• previous complicated pregnancies
• maternal or fetal complications in their current pregnancy.

Patients will be triaged to the appropriate service based on information provided on their referral, or referred internally if conditions arise during their care at the Women’s.

Maternal Medicine Clinic

• Assessment, monitoring and management of higher risk pregnancy where maternal medical conditions cannot be adequately addressed in standard clinics

Fetal Medicine Clinic

• Investigation, diagnosis and management of pregnancies at risk of or complicated by fetal anomalies that cannot be adequately addressed in standard clinics
• Coordination with the Royal Children’s Hospital Fetal Cardiology and other services

Multiple Pregnancy Clinic

• Management of monochorionic, complex dichorionic, and higher-order multiple pregnancies
• Access to in-utero procedures for management of twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome

Prevention of Preterm Labour Clinic

• For pregnant women from early in pregnancy until about 26 weeks (then transferred to standard clinical care)
• Assessment and management of pregnancies at high risk of preterm birth including those affected by a previous preterm birth

Recurrent Miscarriage Clinic

• Investigation and management of women who are not pregnant and meet one of the following:
  • aged ≥ 35 years with history of ≥2 consecutive miscarriages
  • aged < 35 years with history of ≥3 consecutive miscarriages.

Pregnancy Management Clinic

• For women who are not pregnant
• Preconception counselling: advice for patients planning to conceive who have complex obstetric history, disability or significant medical conditions likely to affect pregnancy
• Postnatal debriefing following a complicated birth at the Women’s
• Bereavement review following autopsy (patients of the Women’s only)

Related services

• For information about other general and specialty maternity clinics we run, go to Maternity overview.
• Genetics (Clinical) Service

Inclusion criteria

We accept referrals when the Women’s is the patient’s closest tertiary maternity service. Other Victorian Level 6 maternity services: Mercy Hospital for Women, Monash Health and Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital).

In detail: Capability frameworks for maternity and newborn services, Department of Health

Urgent referral

Please mark your referral URGENT if the patient needs to be seen within 7 days and contact the MFM Fellow to advise referral sent and seek clinical advice if indicated.

Phone the Women's switchboard on (03) 8345 2000 and ask to speak to:

• Fetal Medicine Coordinator or Maternal and Fetal Medicine Fellow if non-urgent
• Obstetric Registrar if urgent out of hours.

Referral instructions

Referrals to all MFM clinics should be faxed to our usual maternity triage team via the Women's Fast Fax: (03) 8345 3036. They will assess and triage the referral to the most suitable clinic/s.

In the case of urgent Fetal Medicine Clinic referrals for fetal abnormality, we encourage direct referral on Fax: (03) 8345 2139.

Any patients with risks of fetal or maternal complications should be referred early in pregnancy. In these cases, there is no need to wait for all pathology and ultrasound investigations to be completed before referring.

Essential information

For all referrals, please complete relevant sections of the Maternity Referral Form – jump to Referral templates (Downloads). Include relevant medical and obstetric history, any risks, abnormal results or other concerns. Attach all investigations including genetic results (if available) completed to date.

More information about what to include: Maternity referrals

In detail: How referrals are processed

Complications after referral

If you become aware of a new maternal or fetal complication after your maternity referral has been sent, please re-send the referral with additional information and attach any relevant investigations.

For advice or genetics counselling regarding screening/testing results, please contact the Genetics (Clinical) Service.

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