A.I. can make you a better-prepared pregnant patient. It can also make you a worse-informed one. In pregnancy, the difference matters more than in any other area of medicine.
If you are pregnant and you have asked ChatGPT, Claude, or another A.I. chatbot a question about your pregnancy, you are not alone. Over a third of Americans now use these tools for health advice. Many of my patients arrive at prenatal visits with lists of questions, suggested diagnoses, and interpretations of their lab results, all generated by a chatbot.
I am not against this. In fact, some of it is genuinely helpful. A chatbot can translate your ultrasound report from medical jargon into plain English. It can help you organize questions before a short office visit. It can explain what your glucose test is for or what your prenatal vitamins contain. Since most prenatal appointments last only 10 to 15 minutes, arriving prepared means you leave with a better understanding and less confusion.
But there is a line that should never be crossed, and it is a line that chatbots will never draw for you.
I have been delivering babies for over 50 years. I have seen what happens when patients delay calling their doctor because they looked something up first and felt reassured. In obstetrics, hours matter. Sometimes minutes matter. A chatbot cannot examine you. It cannot take your blood pressure. It cannot listen to your baby’s heartbeat. It cannot tell the difference between a normal headache and one that signals a life-threatening complication. And here is the part that concerns me most: chatbots are designed to tell you what you want to hear.
Free Subscriber Bottom Line: A.I. chatbots can help you understand your pregnancy records and prepare better questions for your doctor. They should never be used to decide whether a symptom is urgent. In pregnancy, some symptoms that feel minor can become emergencies within hours. Always call your doctor or go to labor and delivery for anything that worries you. The chatbot can wait. Your baby cannot.
Below, paid subscribers get:
• Five smart ways to use A.I. during pregnancy (with examples you can try today)
• The five questions you should never ask a chatbot
• Why chatbots tell you what you want to hear, and why that is dangerous in pregnancy
• The “always call” list: symptoms that should never go through a chatbot first
• How to talk to your doctor about using A.I.
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