Dr Bready, who opened his private practice in Wodonga this week, said women who sought counselling for diabetes, high blood pressure, and thyroid and kidney disease, ahead of their pregnancies were less likely to suffer major complications.

“Pregnant women get sick like everyone else,” Dr Bready said.

“Previously, individual specialists dealt with problems that arose for pregnant patients.

“But since then we have realised it made sense for one specialist to deal with all the particular problems relatively common in pregnancy.”

Dr Bready said by seeking medical advice before they fell pregnant, there were changes that could be made that would improve the mother’s health and reduce the risk to their child.

“For example, there is a 2 per cent likelihood of birth defects among those babies born to the general population; for those diabetic women with poorly controlled blood sugar, that risk can be as high as 25 per cent,” he said.

“There is the incentive for these women to manage their diabetes better and for us to get to people before they are pregnant.

“The biggest thing I see is women leaving my office with a sense of relief.”

Dr Bready grew up in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, where he completed his medical degree at Queen’s University before migrating to Australia in 2000.

He worked for five years in Rockhampton as a junior doctor, ahead of completing his specialty training in Brisbane.

Dr Bready, whose wife Christina comes from the Kiewa Valley, said the couple decided to move to the Border seeking to be closer to family and a lifestyle change for their children, aged four, two and three weeks.

“We would rather our children grew up in a country environment and the work here is more suited to what I do,” he said.

Dr Bready, a general and acute care physician, will also have visiting medical officer rights with Albury Wodonga Health, allowing him to treat patients at both the Albury and Wodonga hospitals with a variety of common acute medical problems.

“I will be doing a ward round once a week in the acute medical wards seeing patients admitted in the previous 24 hours to determine what is wrong and their treatment,” he said.

“I hope that will be one-third of my workload, alongside another third looking after pregnant women and the final third in general medicine.”