Women’s Health

If you're thinking about having a baby, it's best to get your body in tip-top working order so it's fully prepared for pregnancy. The following advice will help get you on the road to parenthood

Generally speaking, women who are physically fit have easier pregnancies and births. Pregnancy places a lot of physiological demands on your body because ligaments become soft and loosen under the influence of pregnancy hormones. (This looseness accounts for many of the aches and pains associated with later pregnancy.) Since you should not start a demanding new fitness programme once you are pregnant, the time to act is before conception. Getting ready to have a baby is as good a reason as any to make healthy lifestyle changes.

You should try not to be too overweight when you conceive for three reasons. Firstly, women who are markedly overweight when they conceive are at increased risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy. Secondly, the extra weight gained during pregnancy is difficult enough to lose after birth without having even more to worry about. Thirdly, if you are very overweight, it will be more difficult for your carers to scan and feel the baby to check its progress.

In terms of specifics, folic acid supplementation is the only factor in a woman's diet that has been shown conclusively to improve a baby's chances of being born healthy. It is particularly important for women who have previously had a baby with a neural tube defect such as spina bifida, or anencephaly. If you fall into this category, you should begin supplementation (4 mg/day) two months before conception and continue taking it for the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. This will not eliminate the risk, but will reduce the chance of recurrence by more than two-thirds. For women who have not previously had an affected baby, there is good evidence that a multivitamin preparation containing a much lower dose of folic acid (0.4 mg/day) protects against neural tube defects and indeed all other congenital malformations apart from cleft lip and/or palate. If you didn't know about these supplements before getting pregnant, or forget to take them, don't worry. Only a small percentage of women actually take supplements before pregnancy and the vast majority have no problems. Spina bifida is a rare occurrence, even without pre-pregnancy folic acid and multivitamin supplementation.

You should not smoke before, during or after pregnancy. Smoking is directly harmful to your own health, causing lung cancer and other chronic respiratory conditions like emphysema and bronchitis. It also predisposes you to other types of cancer, such as cancer of the cervix. Smoking affects your and your partner's fertility adversely and thus can make conception more difficult. Once you are pregnant, smoking reduces both food and oxygen supply to your baby, so give up now. Finally, smoking may result in the premature birth of your baby and low birth weight. Your partner should also refrain from smoking. Smoking affects sperm viability and passive smoking can be harmful
to you.

Heavy drinking can reduce male sperm count; prolonged excessive drinking can harm a developing foetus. Both of you should moderate your alcoholic intake when trying to get pregnant. Don't worry if you have been drinking moderately in the early stages of pregnancy, as it appears that you would need to be drinking heavily throughout pregnancy to harm your baby.