Neighborhood's OB-GYN department now provides Maternal Fetal Medicine through Dr. Margaret McDonnell who joined the department over the summer. Adding this service is part of our efforts to work toward health equity by addressing low birth weight births. 

What is Maternal Fetal Medicine?

Maternal Fetal Medicine includes the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of pregnant patients with complex medical conditions, as well as prenatal diagnosis and management of fetal anomalies. Maternal Fetal Medicine also involves the medical management of patients with complex conditions that may have an impact on the pregnancy. At Neighborhood, this care may involve consultations with outside subspecialists in the fields of endocrinology, cardiology and neurology, or with the neonatologists at the hospitals where patients are delivering, and/or with surgical subspecialists.  Such collaboration allows us to coordinate the best timing, method, and location of delivery for patients and their babies. 

Why is it important?

Having Maternal Fetal Medicine at Neighborhood helps to address barriers to care that patients sometimes encounter when they try to get this care elsewhere. We know that patients have had difficulty accessing Maternal Fetal Medicine specialists due to lack of availability, and barriers such as transportation, language, and hospital systems that are hard to navigate. At Neighborhood, we aim to make Maternal Fetal Medicine more convenient and accessible to all patients who could benefit from it.

What the data show.

In Erie County, 9% of pregnant people experience gestational diabetes, 14% are diagnosed with gestational hypertension, and 31% experience obesity. These chronic conditions negatively affect the birth outcomes in the county where 8.8% of births are low birthweight. Black and Hispanic infants are disproportionately impacted where 14% and 11.8% of births are low weight. Of the 428 deliveries by Neighborhood patients in 2022, 43% were identified as high risk pregnancies.

By providing Maternal Fetal Medicine services at Neighborhood, we are working to improve access to care and health equity. 

Our OB-GYN department is welcoming new patients. Please call us to schedule an appointment with one of our kind providers, or if you're already a Neighborhood patient, request an appointment through the patient portal (log in at the top of the page).