Organization - Maternal and Fetal Medicine Service

The Maternal-Foetal Medicine Department is composed of four main physical areas and three functional areas.

Physical areas

The physical areas, defined as such due to their structural and functional similarities, are:

• Delivery room, operating theatre, emergency room and Intermediate Obstetric Care Unit (UCOI; 5 beds). There are 7 delivery rooms and 2 operating theatres.
• Outpatient clinic for foetal medicine and obstetrics. There are 19 treatment cubicles.
• Foetal medicine area
• Two hospital wards with 30 beds (24 single rooms and a family area) (areas common to the entire Department)

Functional areas

The functional areas group together care processes and have the following responsibilities:

• Maternal medicine section:
  • General Obstetrics
    • Monitoring of normal pregnancies
    • Low- and high-risk births
    • First trimester pathology
  • Maternal and obstetric pathology
    • Medical or surgical maternal pathology: specifically including autoimmune diseases, diabetes, perinatal psychiatry, perinatal infections, hypertension, and cardiovascular and neurological diseases.
    • First, second and third trimester obstetric pathology, such as the risk of prematurity and placental abnormalities.
• Foetal Medicine Section:
  • Foetal Medicine
    • Foetal malformative and functional placental pathology.
    • Foetal therapy and surgery
    • Ultrasound screening

Within the functional areas, there are specific areas of action that deal with specific groups of diseases that are more important in the specialty due to the volume of patients or the complexity of the disease. The specific clinical areas are directly responsible for the care of all clinical processes defined within their scope, for the follow-up and decisions on cases, for the establishment of clinical guidelines, and for teaching and research carried out. These units also involve other medical specialties, both from the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona and the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu de Barcelona. The most interdisciplinary consultations are carried out synchronously with other specialists from the Hospital Clínic.

Foetal Medicine Care Activity

• Prenatal diagnosis and genetic counselling
• Surgical pathology
• Cardiology
• Neurology
• Nephrourology
• Haematology
• Multiple pregnancy
• Foetal growth

Maternal medicine care activities

• Perinatal infections
• Diabetes and pregnancy
• Prematurity
• Perinatal psychiatry
• First trimester pathology
• Autoimmune Diseases and Pregnancy
• Hypertension and risk of preeclampsia

Since 2012, the Maternal-Foetal Medicine and Neonatology Departments have been functionally integrated with the Obstetrics and Neonatology Departments of the Hospital de Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona, at the Centre for Maternal, Foetal and Neonatal Medicine in Barcelona (BCNatal). The centre has two vertical structures corresponding to departments and sections, but with a single cross-cutting coordination of all activity, with cross-cutting operational areas.