Prep Up For Pregnancy

Ensuring good maternal health is crucial to Baby’s well-being. But necessary steps must be taken at the preconception stage and continued as you plan to conceive. Here is all you need to do.

- Dr. Sutopa Banerjee

THE PRE-PREGNANCY or preconception period of a woman’s life is no less crucial than the nine months of gestation. It has a significant bearing on lowering risks of birth defects and premature birth, as well as on mother’s health. As per a study by March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, US, it is important to intervene before a woman becomes pregnant in order to improve infant and maternal mortality rates. The research points out that some interventions work best towards ensuring good maternal health if they begin before pregnancy. Here are a few health and lifestyle habits that you must start following three months before conceiving.

eat right

While your diet must be worth your attention all your life, now that you plan to bring another life into this world, it is imperative that you take extra care and watch what you eat. I suggest that you go into pregnancy with a good dietary regimen already in place. It should include a variety of foods rich in fibre, calcium, zinc and folic acid. Research has found that intake of folic acid, a B-group vitamin needed for the growth and development of your baby, lowers birth defects such as spina bifida (a neural tube defect where bones of the spine do not form properly around a part of Baby’s spinal cord). It is important to mention here that India is one among the countries that report the highest cases of spina bifida.