Pregnant in Denmark: 1st trimester

When I found out I was pregnant in October, I had a million questions right away. I immediately went to a bookstore and bought 3 books from the “pregnancy” section (I was in the US at the time, so thankfully had plenty of English options at my fingertips!). Those helped with the universal questions — What can I eat? Are my symptoms normal? How do I know how far along I am?

But I still had so many questions about being pregnant in Denmark. Do I call my normal doctor, or do I need to find an OB? How soon can I see a doctor? When do I get an ultrasound? Do I get to choose my birth hospital, or will it be chosen for me?

Some of this information is available online; I found this document from Sundhedsstyrelsen (the health ministry) extremely helpful, and it’s in English! Sundhed.dk also has a lot of information (in Danish). But what I really wanted was for someone to walk me through every step of what would happen during my pregnancy, like What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but specific to Denmark, but written in English. Is that so much to ask?! Apparently, because I couldn’t find anything like that.

So, I’m obviously not an expert here, but I am 6 months into my pregnancy and I figured I can at least share my own experience. If there are any newly pregnant women out there as stressed and anxious as I was, I hope you find this helpful!!

I should also mention that this is my experience with the public system only. There are private clinics, but I have not been to one so far and don’t really know anything about them.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting in Denmark: The 1st Trimester

Blood work

This actually is not part of the “typical” pregnancy care, but it’s part of my experience, so I’m adding it in. I have a hormone condition (hypothyroidism) that was diagnosed when I was 18. Apparently it is fairly common for women to be diagnosed with hypothyroidism during pregnancy because your hormones are going crazy (technical term, haha), but that wasn’t the case for me. I had read that hypothyroidism can affect fetal development if not properly treated, so I requested an extra blood test from my doctor in the first trimester to make sure that my thyroid levels looked okay. I got the blood test around 6 weeks at my GP’s office and the results were normal. After this, my GP (general practitioner) referred me to an endocrinologist to manage my thyroid treatment, which is standard practice during pregnancy here. Now I get blood work every month and the endocrinologist adjusts my dosage if needed based on those results. After the baby comes, I will go back to only seeing my GP for my hypothyroidism.

Even if you do not have the same specific condition as me, it’s worth noting that you will get extra care if needed. You just might need to be proactive and bring it up with your doctor yourself!

8 week appointment & follow up

My first official prenatal appointment was at 8 weeks with the nurse who works at my GP’s office. At this appointment, she took a urine test and blood test, and walked me through a bunch of paperwork, mostly about my husband’s and my medical history. The paperwork also included the forms that go in my vandrejournal. The vandrejournal is a set of forms in a yellow envelope that you are supposed to take with you to all of your appointments with your doctor, midwife, and hospital (ie: ultrasounds). Normally this is how the various medical professionals “communicate” with each other, by keeping your records from these appointments in one place. (However, this seems to be a bit different in Covid times. I’ve brought my vandrejournal to all of my appointments, but have only been asked for it once. One midwife told me they haven’t been using them because they want to minimize things being passed around. So take it with you, but you might not end up needing it.)

At this appointment, the nurse also gave me a 1-page handout that briefly explained some practical information about what to expect during my pregnancy:

• Which supplements to take during my pregnancy (folic acid, vitamin D, and iron, at different points)
• When I would have appointments with my GP (and that I should make these appointments myself)
• When I would have appointments with a midwife (and that these would be automatically scheduled for me, and I would be informed via e-Boks)
• When I would get ultrasounds (and that I should schedule these myself with the hospital)

She scheduled my follow up appointment for me, and told me I could ask the doctor any questions I had when I came back for that.

I went back to my doctor’s office at 10 weeks to go over the results from my blood test (this is normally at 9 weeks, but they were booked, haha). It was at this point that the GP referred me to an endocrinologist, too. I had the chance to ask the doctor a few questions, but the whole appointment was probably 10 minutes.

Hospital assignment

There are 5 hospitals in Region Hovedstaten (the capital region) where women can give birth, and you are typically assigned a hospital based on where you live. I booked our 1st trimester ultrasound (nakkefoldsskanning/nuchal fold scan) at the hospital where we expected to be assigned after my 8 week appointment.

Near the end of my first trimester, I got a message in my e-Boks telling me which hospital I had been assigned to for birth, which was actually not the one we expected. The message also gave directions for booking the 1st trimester scan if I hadn’t done that already. Last, it said that I could request to change hospitals after my 2nd trimester scan (around 20 weeks), and they would try to accommodate it if there was room. (Even though we didn’t get assigned to the hospital we expected, we aren’t planning to switch.)

Double test

The “doubletest” is the term to describe the test for chromosomal abnormalities, like Downs syndrome. In Denmark they typically do a blood test late in the first trimester, combined with a nuchal fold scan at the first ultrasound. For the blood test, I booked an appointment to get the blood work at the same hospital where I scheduled the ultrasound.

1st trimester ultrasound

The first trimester scan is usually around 12-13 weeks, and is conducted by a midwife at the hospital. The medical purpose is the nuchal fold scan, and also to determine an accurate estimated due date based on the gestational size of the fetus. Normally it is too early to tell the baby’s sex at this point.

However, we got a little surprise at ours — I thought I was 13 weeks at the time, but the midwife informed us that I was actually already 16 weeks (this is a problem with not having any earlier scans, I suppose!). Because of this, she was able to tell already that our little one is a boy (!!), but it also meant that the baby was too far developed for the nuchal fold measurements to be helpful.

NIPT test

Since the midwife couldn’t do the typical nuchal fold measurements, she referred us to get the NIPT (non-invasive prenatal test), which is a blood test that can assess the risk for chromosomal abnormalities with extremely high accuracy. She told us that it’s more expensive, which is why it’s not offered to everyone in the public system, but lots of people choose (and pay) to have this done at a private clinic during the first trimester (it’s also a way to find out the baby’s sex earlier). People would also be referred to get the NIPT as further testing if the nuchal fold scan showed a high risk for abnormalities.

We were of course happy to have this test done (and we did not have to pay for it since we were referred), but the downside is that it takes about 9 days to get the results. Our midwife told us that I would get an e-Boks message if the results were normal, and a phone call if they were not. I sincerely thought “9 days” must be an over-estimate, because usually blood test results are so fast! But we got our results (normal, via e-Boks) on day 8. And that’s 8 business days, so almost 2 weeks. So if you get the NIPT, don’t expect quick results.

Phew — I think that’s everything for the first trimester!! Again, this is just my personal experience and isn’t universal, but hopefully someone out there finds it helpful (or at least interesting)!

If you’re pregnant in Denmark, what questions do you still have?

If you’ve been pregnant in Denmark, any advice for new moms-to-be? Anything I left out? Please share your experiences!! 🙂