How To Prepare For Pregnancy
Contents:
- Why it is Necessary to Prepare for Pregnancy?
- How to Be Prepared for Pregnancy to the Man and the Woman?
Why it is Necessary to Prepare for Pregnancy?
In saying about how to be prepared for pregnancy the first thing to be understood is: why you have to prepare for it at all. If you have enough time for such preparation, it is better to pay it maximum attention. There are a great number of reasons for this in the modern world. First of all it, certainly, health of the woman, but there are many obvious occasions besides.
Nutrition of modern human living in the city, both a woman and a man, consists of natural products hardly for 80% percent at best. Today's "chemical food industry" is a mix of fertilizers, antibiotics, hormone growth promoters, dyes, preservatives, flavoring additives, fragrances, modified products, and God knows of what other nasty things. The organism tries to survive in an intensive chemical flow in every way. However immunity and other cleaning systems aren't always capable to cope fully with the attack of collecting harmful substances, which cause disorders of functioning of various inner systems. So, whether the «moving-in» of future little man is justified?
Various infections, including sexually transmitted ones are the second reason for special preparation. During pregnancy it is actually possible to be the carrier of an infection and even not to suspect of threat for the organism of future mother and of the child by presence of a pathogen. Therefore the fact of such hidden enemies needs to be considered and excluded by all means even before the pregnancy period.
Rate of modern life with various stresses is the third reason for advance preparation for pregnancy. Stressful moods before pregnancy considerably influence a state of health of the woman. In such condition adrenal cortex actively throws out in blood a huge number of corticosteroid hormones which not only negatively influence the organism, but also act as "provokers" of a number of diseases. For this reason women which are over thirty are especially recommended to be engaged in recovery of the nervous system before planning of pregnancy.
How to Be Prepared for Pregnancy to the Man and the Woman?
Methods of preparation for the conception period considerably differ for men and women. As to the man, 2-3 months before conception are, as a rule, enough to exclude the addictions and any harmful factors influencing the forming of active, viable spermatozoa. It is desirable not to smoke, not to abuse alcohol, not to overheat scrotum, and to have regular sex. As for the woman, it's more complicated than that and more responsible.
First Step
It is better for the woman to be prepared to conception thoroughly, and sometimes such preparation is obligatory, otherwise pregnancy just won't occur. It is necessary to stop taking oral contraceptives for half a year before conception. The woman who uses a spiral has to take it out, at least in three-four months. Let's the uterus have a rest, to collect the strength and to adjust a normal monthly cycle. All this time before conception try to be protected only by condoms.
Second Step
It is important to undergo inspection by the gynecologist regarding female health problems (such as erosions, stood pregnancies, miscarriages, abortions and so forth). It is desirable for the women already facing specific difficulties earlier to pass Ultrasonography at least a month before conception. It is necessary to exclude unpleasant surprises or vain expectations.
If you have earlier happened to perform abortion, to transfer inflammatory illnesses of the inner organs of small pelvis or to have any infectious diseases in sexual conduct area before conception, you need to estimate permeability of uterine tubes. It is necessary to prevent possible abdominal pregnancy.
Besides, the woman needs to make blood test which will define existence of Rubella virus antibodies. In case of lack of these antibodies, it will be necessary to do vaccination against rubella, by such way you can protect yourself and your future child from severe consequences which are caused by this disease in pregnant women.
You don't need to do this analysis if you are 100% sure that you have had rubella in your childhood. In that case you already have immunity to this disease. However if there are any doubts with reference to that question, it is better to undergo thorough recheck and to make yourself secure.
Third Step
As for possible infections, including sexual ones, it is more effective and safer to treat them before pregnancy, not later. It relates to both parents.
Both partners without fail need to be checked for sexually transmitted infections:
- clamidiosis;
- ureaplasmosis;
- mycoplasmosis;
- cytomegalovirus;
- herpes virus;
- syphilis;
- trichomoniasis;
- gonorrhea.
All these diseases are capable to lead to infertility, or to cause heavy defects in development of fetus, to provoke miscarriage, lack of an opportunity to take out pregnancy. Quite often people, especially women, can carry such diseases without having any symptoms. In other words, persons carrying the virus may be unaware that they've been infected. It is the best of all to conduct such examination by method of diagnostics of DNA (PCR). In case of detection of any infection, both partners will need to receive medical treatment, and they may plan pregnancy only after that.
Fourth Step
If you have any chronic diseases, you need to consult your doctor or the gynecologist. Such diseases may be: cardiovascular diseases, varicosity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, failures of endocrine system, etc. Find out how pregnancy would proceed on their background, learn about possible precautionary measures, and undergo preventive treatment if it is necessary. Even if you feel quite healthy, pass an ordinary theraupeutic check up: survey, measurement of arterial pressure, blood and urine tests and fluorography.
Fifth Step
Before conception it is necessary to make blood tests for Toxoplasma antibody. Infection with toxoplasmosis is very serious disease menacing with the most severe consequences. It causes by cat's parasites and it is capable to lead to the most serious disturbances of fetation. These parasites can get into the developing fetus, being built in DNA and doing the irreparable harm incompatible with full-fledged life or even with life itself.
If Toxoplasma antibodies aren't found, follow the next rules of precaution before conception, and also for all nine months of pregnancy:
- don't stroke homeless or alien kittens;
- ask another family member to attend to your pet;
- wash your hands thoroughly before eating;
- don't eat raw or badly fried meat.
Sixth Step
Before you become pregnant, experts advise to take care of your physical state – in particular to stabilize weight, to bring muscles into a tone. How to be prepared for pregnancy physiologically? First of all, it is needed to normalize your nutrition.
Include seafood in your family diet, also as well as vegetables, fruit, juice, caviar and other useful things. If to observe such diet, then there will be no urgent need to accept polyvitaminic complexes during the first trimester of pregnancy. Especially if this most responsible period of formation of all systems and inner bodies of the small organism occur in summer-autumn, when natural vitaminization peaked in, too.
Try to acquaint yourself and your family with a healthy lifestyle. Walk in the open fresh air more often, avoid various stresses and depressions. Begin to do exercises in the morning, in particular pay attention to strengthening of muscles of an abdominal tension and of your back as they become necessary for you in due time.
Seventh Step
The proper nutrition is rather sufficient step, but despite that, experts advise to take folic acid for a month, and ideally for three. This substance bears responsibility for exception of pathologies in development of the nervous system of future child.
Eighth Step
If the beginning of pregnancy is planned for winter-spring, the period which is not enriched with vitamins, then these deficient vitamins are recommended for administration two months before conception. They may be, for example, usual polyvitamins or special vitamins for pregnant women. It is not always possible to plan the ration ideally, and vitamins can be important to support health of the woman even at all times, not just during pregnancy. Their benefits to fetus formation are such obvious, that there is no telling about that.
The special vitamins for pregnant and feeding women are the vitaminous-mineral preparations containing all set of necessary elements for future conception. They are the optimal measure to be prepared for pregnancy, to give birth to the child and to prepare him for an aggressive ambient. The most popular and effective of such preparations are Materna, Pregnavit, Ledis-formula, Yunikap-M, Hendevitum, etc. During this period various herbal collections would be perfectly well for stimulating immunity.
Ninth Step
Unhook yourself from bad and lousy habits right away, however difficult it may be. Smoking women need to quit at least 3-4 months before conception, but not when she is with a visible paunch. The last researches reveal that smoking provokes genetic disorders, causing anomalies in DNA. It is significant that many of such dysfunctions are not revealed at first, but even over generation. You think it is a next bad-news story? You can think so, but what if the scientists haven’t mistaken? Whether this doubtful pleasure is worth your future generation’s lives?
Exclude alcohol including beer from your diet. Make it as early as 3 month before conception. You ought to remember that nothing influence the survival of spermatozoa so perniciously as this drink adored by men!
Tenth Step
It is obligatory to visit the stomatologist and the oculist. If you don’t visit the stomatologist in time, then you run the risk of getting serious problems ahead for years. Sometimes at pregnancy teeth begin to rot very soon. Yes, it is possible to get teeth seen during pregnancy period if could be ignored the pathological fear of a drill and other stomatological things felt practically by each woman. And as you know, it is strictly contraindicative to the pregnant woman to be nervous.
But all that is nothing compared with extraction of a tooth and with the subsequent prosthetic repair. But it is impossible to do it in the first trimester of pregnancy, and in the last trimester you can’t make a prosthetic appliance because of the need of using a local anaesthetic. At all this it is known that caries is site of entry for infections. In the second trimester it is possible to treat the teeth, but if you miss the moment then you will stay without teeth for a whole year, and even up to the finishing of breast feeding.
As for vision, it is better to make examination by the oculist at a planning stage. The matter is that some problems with vision are the indication to Cesarean section. Contrary to general belief, the reason of such way of the childbirth is not so much myopia as the state of retina. The eye-doctor has to be assured that birth contraction wouldn’t lead to retinal detachment. If you have at least the slightest vision problems, you'll have to survey your eyes anyway, but it is better to make it at the planning stage, then when your paunch will be always visible. It would be best if the pregnant woman with her stomach had a good time in the park than at out-patient clinic.