Having a Healthy Pregnancy Plan can reduce the risks to both you and your baby. During the first few weeks of pregnancy, your baby is forming vital organs. A healthy body and good nutrition will help with normal growth. Avoiding exposure to substances that could interfere with your baby’s development and correcting any health problems that you already have can improve both you and your baby’s well-being. Preconception planning can also reduce the stress of pregnancy and birth.
Preconception health education and counseling includes topics such as: genetics, nutrition, effects of medications and specific diseases you may already have, lifestyle choices, workplace and environmental hazards, and fertility awareness.
Topics you may want to address with your health care provider may include:
- Your medical history: diabetes, heart, liver or kidney disorders, thyroid, high blood pressure, clotting disorders, epilepsy, depression, asthma, among others are important to get under control before conception.
- Nutritional information: special diets, vegetarianism, bulimia or anorexia, obesity. Are you supplementing your diet with herbal or vitamin preparations? Should you be taking folic acid now?
- Social history: smoking, alcohol use or overuse as well as other concerns. Exposures to chemicals or hazardous substances. Strenuous or dangerous activities and work stressors.
- Age or hereditary concerns: Including family history of congenital or hereditary illnesses or birth defects. Age related risks; especially concerning teens and women over 35.
- Infectious disease history: Contagious diseases, blood transfusions, occupational exposure to blood or body secretions. Do you own or work with cats? Are you immune to rubella?
- Reproductive history: history of pregnancy loss at any gestation, small or large babies, uterine or cervical abnormalities.
- Information about when to try for pregnancy, what is the fertile time, and any concerns you have about fertility.
If you would like to visit withour physicians or Certified Nurse Midwives Jill Dolberg or Dana Rhodes about your plans, please call us at 402-483-7641.
