Maternity Day Assessment Unit (DAU)

The Day Assessment Unit (DAU) is found on the ground floor of the Princess of Wales Maternity Unit at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital. The unit is a busy high-risk appointment-based clinic run by midwives to look after pregnant women that need extra care during their pregnancy and for problems during your pregnancy that need closer monitoring, reassurance and care.  

The Day Assessment Unit is staffed by a highly trained midwife, a maternity support worker, a ward clerk and doctors. Please feel free to speak to them and ask any questions you may have.   

Your consultant or midwife may refer you to the Day Assessment Unit for a variety of reasons, some are listed below:

• Obstetric cholestasis
• Baby’s growth
• Prolonged rupture of membranes
• High blood pressure
• Daily CTG monitoring (monitoring your baby’s heartbeat)
• Part of fetal medicine plan
• For a non-routine scan
• Ferinject infusion
• B12 injections
• External cephalic version (a procedure to turn a baby to be positioned head down)
• Anti-D injection

In the Day Assessment Unit, you will see a midwife for your appointment and will have a blood pressure and urine check. The midwife will make sure that you have a plan of care and further appointments in place if needed. You may need more than one scan and or a series of blood tests to confirm what is happening with your pregnancy.

You may need to wait before being seen in the unit. If you need to be looked at by a doctor you will be asked to wait in the waiting room until the doctor is able to see you.

You will be given an appointment time and it's important to keep to this or contact us if you need to rearrange. Women who attend the DAU will have differing needs and may need to be seen by different colleagues during this visit that may affect the length of time and order they are seen.

Please give details of your concerns on arrival so that your care can be prioritised or moved to the Maternity Urgent Assessment Unit, if necessary. You may be asked to stay in the department for two hours or more to make sure that all the necessary tests are completed, and results received.

You are welcome to bring another person with you, however, we recommend not bringing children.

The Day Assessment Unit also runs a scan list that is carried out by a midwife sonographer. Specialist midwives can scan your baby from 24 weeks of pregnancy but do not scan twins. Twin pregnancies are scanned by the main scan department