• Be sure to ask your practitioner about his or her policy for after-hours problems or emergencies — including questions you may need to ask by telephone on evenings or weekends.
• What's the hospital like? If your pregnancy is uncomplicated, any good hospital or birthing center will be fine for you. If you're at risk of some complications, you may want to ask whether your hospital has a labor and delivery suite and a nursery equipped to handle any problems that may arise if, for example, the baby is born early.

You may also want to ask:

• Is an anesthesiologist on site 24 hours a day, or can your doctor call in an anesthesiologist quickly in case of an emergency?
• Can the hospital provide you with epidural anesthesia (a form of pain control during labor)? If epidural anesthesia is not readily available, or you're not interested in this form of pain relief, you should find out what other options are available for pain management.
• Are you allowed to room in — that is, keep the baby in your room as much as possible — after delivery? Also, are accommodations available for your partner to stay with you during your postpartum hospitalization?
• Are specialists close by? Consider whether you may end up needing the services of a maternal-fetal medicine specialist or a neonatologist, a physician who specializes in the care of infants who are born early or who have other medical problems. Ideally, your practitioner can refer you to someone quickly if anything comes up.
• Will my insurance plan cover the costs of this doctor? Now that managed care has become an important part of the health insurance industry, it may be important to you to know whether your practitioner of choice is covered by your plan. Some places allow you to select physicians from "outside the network" if you pay part of the cost yourself.

Excerpted from Pregnancy For Dummies™, published by John Wiley & Sons.

For more information on "Pregnancy For Dummies®", or other books, visit Dummies.com.