How to look after yourself while you’re pregnant

If you are pregnant you have certain rights and various options for support and help during pregnancy that will help to ensure the health of you and your baby. This applies even if you don’t have a yellow medical card. Here you can read about the various options available.

If you need to stay anonymous because you are at risk, you can ask for discretion in your treatment. Read more about this below.

Do you want to stay anonymous during your examinations?

Health professionals have an extended duty of confidentiality. This means that information about your health and other private information may not be disclosed to other authorities without your consent unless the information is necessary for further processing to take place.

There may be several different reasons why it is important to you that your pregnancy and upcoming birth are kept confidential. If this is the case, staff at the hospital can treat your medical record with discretion. In practice, this means that the hospital will add a ‘discretion’ mark to your record so that it is always clearly visible how important it is that your presence in the hospital and your examinations are not disclosed.

Maternity care – support during and after pregnancy

Maternity care is a term that covers the support provided during pregnancy, childbirth and after birth, and it includes consultations with a doctor and a midwife.

When pregnant it is important that you think about your own and your child’s health. In Denmark you have certain rights and opportunities to ensure that your pregnancy proceeds as it should. The examinations you are offered are to detect any problems and prevent complications in the pregnancy in order to make it a safe experience.

You can get help at the hospitals in emergency situations

Generally, everyone has the right to emergency health services in the public health system, so if you experience acute complications during your pregnancy, you can in full confidentiality contact a hospital or a doctor. This could be if you start bleeding heavily, suffer serious pain, or go into labour before your due date. Or perhaps you have a chronic disease that is getting worse. In such cases, it is important that you quickly seek out the nearest maternity ward.

The extended confidentiality clause prevents health professionals from disclosing information about you to the police or immigration authorities unless serious criminal matters are involved.

Need advice about your options?

If you think this is too much to take in and don’t quite know what to do, you are more than welcome to contact us. We can guide you to the right place and tell you more about your rights and options.

We want to talk to you so that together we can ensure you get the help you need. Counselling can be given in both Danish and English.

Contact us right here.