Preconception - How long for?

16 Feb

Preconception care ‘comprises counselling and the provision of biomedical, behavioural and social health interventions to optimise the health of women and their partners prior to pregnancy and improve health related outcomes for themselves and their children.’ — Australian Journal of General Practice

Preconception has always been more focused on the mama to be, I was so happy to read this definition in the Australian Journal of General Practice (a journal for general practitioners) including partners in the definition. Optimising health of the mother to be and the partner in the months leading up to conception has been shown to increase chances of falling pregnant, better pregnancy outcomes and can affect babies health throughout their whole life.

There is some scary research starting to submerge about the impacts on some environmental toxins that can be found in everyday life, on the health of not only our baby, but our babies’ babies too! I will go into more detail on these in the future - but wow!

I like to work with a mama to be for 3-6 months prior to them trying for a baby. Sometimes, it can take this long to rectify nutritional deficiencies, build healthy habits with nutrition and lifestyle or balance hormones to be able to fall pregnant! Other times it may be apparent that there is toxin exposure and we want to ensure ample time to avoid and detoxify these from the body. Our follicles take 100 days to develop, so when you ovulate the egg released is a reflection of the last 3 months of your life.

Areas to consider during preconception;

Rectifying nutritional deficiencies
Correct intake of key foetal development nutrients
Adequate caloric intake
Healthy weight for mum and partner
Healthy levels of exercise
Regular, healthy menstrual cycle
Avoidance of certain lifestyle factors - smoking, alcohol, drugs (for both the mama and baby daddy!)
Reducing toxin exposure in the home, through fragrances and food

Now if you are reading this after the fact, don’t stress! We can only work with the knowledge we have at the time. You can focus on these factors while you are pregnant to unsure your babies best health outcome.

More on all of the individual areas of preconception care in the upcoming Preconception Series.

Kim xx