WASHINGTON — A pregnancy requires a lot of visits to the doctor, but the steps taken before conceiving a baby can be just as crucial.
Sally Squires, who writes the Lean Plate Club™ blog, said Tuesday that a pre-conception care checkup is important in identifying factors that would put mother and baby at risk.
“They are things like checking your weight — are you overweight? Do you have high blood pressure? High cholesterol? It’s checking all of the things that can be linked with complications of pregnancy like preeclampsia, early birth and gestational diabetes,” Squires said.
Eating right is an important aspect of pre-conception care, because time can pass between conceiving and discovering the pregnancy.
“Most women don’t know that they’re pregnant for four to eight weeks, and that’s the time when organs are developing,” Squires said.
Many OB-GYNs prescribe prenatal vitamins before patients conceive to ensure that all of the nutrients are covered. Folic acid is especially important, Squires said, to help prevent spina bifida and other neural tube defects.
Taking a look at your family health history could also give doctors a heads up to potential problems.
“You or your partner might have a genetic disease that is really important that you know about,” Squires said. “And so we know that certain families can be carriers for sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis and other diseases. Also, diabetes and high blood pressure tend to run in families — and you need to get checked for sexually transmitted diseases which could affect you and your baby,” Squires said.
And your pre-conception preparation is the time to get up to date on vaccinations.
Tetanus and measles, mumps and rubella are just a couple of the vaccinations that you might need to catch up on.
Taking time before pregnancy to make some lifestyle changes can help go into it healthy and as risk-free as possible.
Drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco and taking any kind of medications either prescription or over the counter or use recreational drugs all can affect both the pregnancy and an unborn child.
Exercise can also help get ready for a baby.
“A new study was just published in the Journal of Medicine and Science in sports and exercise looked at 1,300 women who were enrolled in a coronary risk disease study,” Squires said.
“Basically none of these women had diabetes when the study began 24 years ago, but 164 women during the course of this nearly quarter-century study developed diabetes. The researchers found that the odds of developing this condition were 21 percent lower for women who were the most fit when they got pregnant.”
