Learn which patients may benefit from referral and what to expect from the process in this update from perinatologist Annalisa Post, MD. Offering advanced diagnostic studies, postnatal planning and genetic counseling, the specialists in our Oakland location help patients make informed decisions, prepare for delivery, and access care from pediatric specialists in nephrology, neurology, cardiology, orthopedic surgery, palliative care and other fields.
So, first, just uh discussing the fetal treatment center, Oakland. So we have The fetal treatment center within UCSF refers to both of our sites. We have our, our site at Mission Bay in, in San Francisco, and then we have our site here in Oakland, which is within the Children's Hospital, and it's located right here, like I said, within the, the outpatient building of the Children's Hospital, and it's actually been around in some form for more than 10 years. It used to be just pediatric specialties, and neonatologists creating postnatal plans for, for patients who are pregnant. And over the last few years has really grown into a full-service fetal treatment center similar to the one that we have in, in San Francisco. So, We do ultrasounds for diagnosis. We do MFM consultation with myself and a couple of other MFMs that work here as well. And then over the last year, we've added a lot more services, so we also have our genetic counselor, Rebecca Freeman, who's here. We have a social work. We have our fetal coordinators, um, so we really do a lot of kind of whole care for women that we're co-managing with fetal anomalies. And these are the, the top two, Dr. Lee and Dr. Norton are, are directors of the Fetal Treatment Center in general on the medical side. Doctor Anderson here is the neonatologist who's the co-director of this Oakland site along with me, and then Erin, obviously, you guys have already met in this talk. He's our, our director of both sites. And these are many of our other clinic staff here in Oakland. I'm gonna skip past that and just briefly list the pediatric specialties that we hook patients up with for prenatal consultation, what, whatever they need for their fetus, and then making postnatal plans. So, you can see all this list. I'm sure you guys are very familiar with having patients who have some sort of fetal condition and kind of what our goal is, is to diagnose that, explain that. And then have them see the specialists before birth so that they understand the condition and what the plan is going to be and have that direct pipeline into that postnatal treatment plan. So that's exactly what we do. We, we get referred patients, we evaluate them, we have a plan, and then we hook them up with the appropriate pediatric specialties and make that postnatal plan. And of course, also have the genetic counseling, which is a really important part of, of what we do. And just to clarify, since I know it's very confusing with all the different MFM services and groups, especially in the East Bay. So, here, yes, I'm an MFM and we do MFM, but it's all surrounded around fetal anomalies. So we do fetal MFM consults and care and care of the fetus and postnatal planning for that infant. If maternal MFM care is needed, we don't have those services within this clinic. We can't, we can't even take a blood pressure on someone. It's just not, it's not designed for maternal care here. So if maternal MFM care is needed, then obviously other MFM sites have to be looped in, which I know you guys have workflows for that as well. And then how does that work for deliveries? So, most of the time, you know, I know your group delivers at Alta Bates or at Highland, and most of the anomalies that we care for can deliver at Alta Bates or Highland. It's very rare to have to transfer to, to Mission Bay in San Francisco and at Alta Bates or at Highland, if needed after birth, it's sometimes it's planned, sometimes it's unexpected, the infants can be transferred here to Children's Hospital to the intensive care nursery for all of the services that we discussed. So briefly, the referral pathway. If you were to have an ultrasound that diagnosed or suspects a fetal anomaly, the next step could be referral directly here. And what we do is we do ultrasounds, we confirm or clarify that diagnosis, and then, as you can see on the top, in most cases, we can then co-manage along with the referring group, even if it's a general OBGYN group, um, and just co-manage doing some of the, the Fetal care along with mom's regular prenatal care and make an appropriate plan for delivery and how that baby will be cared for after birth. And as you know, sometimes moms need their own MFM maternal fetal medicine care, so in that case, they might need to be transferred or have consults at another MFM site. And like I said, very rarely do we have to actually recommend delivery elsewhere, so delivery at Mission Bay. So, fortunately, almost all uh conditions we're able to just keep here and deliver it all to Bates or at Highland.
