Planning for pregnancy

An article in The Lancet concluded that:

‘There are strong links between health before pregnancy and maternal and child health outcomes, with consequences that can extend across generations, but awareness of these links is not widespread.’

During pregnancy, women are exposed to a wealth of information and guidance about what they can do to reduce their risks of adverse outcomes. However, in the pre-conception period, this is not the case.

Let's take one woman, Mary. Mary did not find out about how important folic acid was until she told her doctor she was pregnant, which was week 6, and did not see a midwife until week 12. The doctor did not want to worry Mary and so did not tell her that it would have been more effective to start taking folic acid 2 months before stopping contraception, in order to build it up for maximum protection.

Mary's BMI was over 30. After her pregnancy was confirmed, she received information about her weight, as well as extra appointments and tests. Everyone explained to Mary that her weight increased the risk of pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes. Mary wished that she had known about this before pregnancy so that she could have tried to lose weight.