Your Pregnancy - Fetal Medicine Service

Maternity Services - Your pregnancy - Fetal medicine unit - Top image

Our fetal medicine service works closely with the parents and our obstetric colleagues, midwives and sonographers to provide diagnoses and management for pregnancies where a complication of the unborn baby is suspected.

The service is led by a team of three specialist fetal medicine doctors. Our specialist multiple pregnancy midwife is part of our fetal medicine team as well.

Our fetal medicine service offers:

Diagnosis and management of fetal abnormalities.
Management of complicated pregnancies.
Invasive diagnostic testing by Chorionic villous sampling (CVS) and amniocentesis to detect chromosomal abnormalities.
Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for mothers with high risk screening test result. The testing is done in cooperation with University College London Hospitals (UCLH).
Monitoring and treatment of women with rhesus alloimmunisation, alloimmune thrombocytopaenia and other abnormal red cell antibodies.
Management of monochorionic twin pregnancies (formerly known as identical twins) and higher order multiple pregnancies.
Management and care of parents expecting dichorionic twins (formerly known as non-identical twins) is by the Twins Clinic specialist midwife Kate Milne, with Miss Elly Tsoi as lead Obstetrician/FMU Consultant.
Prediction and prevention of pre-term delivery.

Referral system

If our sonographers suspect a fetal abnormality during a scan, they will let you know and refer you to see one of our fetal medicine specialists. You could also be referred to us if there is any concern about the growth of the baby, the fluid around the baby during your pregnancy, or if a screening test shows you are at an increased risk of having a baby with a chromosomal abnormality.

Fetal medicine clinics

Our fetal medicine clinics are held Monday to Friday at The Whittington Hospital. The unit is located in the Whittington Hospital, Kenwood Wing, 5th floor.

When you come to see us we will carry out a specialist scan to confirm the suspected diagnosis. If we find there is no abnormality we will reassure you and you can continue with your planned maternity care.

If the diagnosis is confirmed we will explain what this means and discuss in detail the options available for managing the condition. Depending on your condition you may continue to see us in the fetal medicine unit throughout your pregnancy.

For some conditions, such as twin to twin transfusion syndrome or fetal heart abnormalities, you may need further assessment and care with colleagues at an advanced specialist Fetal Medicine Centre with whom we work closely: Great Ormond Street Hospital, University College London Hospital and King's College Hospital.

We have close links with all of the hospitals we refer to and our Whittington fetal medicine specialists run clinics at the fetal Medicine Unit at University College London Hospital as well.

Fetal medicine service team

Miss Carolyn Paul, Consultant in Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine

Miss Elly Tsoi, Consultant in Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine

Miss Anna Lawin-O'Brien, Consultant in Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine

Kate Milne, Midwife-Sonographer and Twins Clinic specialist

Meet the team

Kate Milne

Twin specialist midwife

kate.milne4@nhs.net

Please note that email queries to the midwife are strictly for pregnant women expecting twins, and their twin pregnancy has been confirmed by ultrasound scan.