Pre-Pregnancy To-Do List

If you`re thinking about having a baby, you possibly might have questioned how lengthy it’s going to take to get pregnant when you can have sex, and how many times. You can find all the answers to your questions here. This most certainly is not an unusual place to question your concerns. You may be thinking what your percentages are that you’ll get pregnant this month? For all couples seeking to conceive, the percentages that the woman becomes pregnant are 15% to 25% in any specific month.

But there are a few matters which can have an effect on your risk of having pregnant like age, irregular menstrual cycles, frequency of sex, and the number of times you’ve been trying to get pregnant. After you attain the age of 30, your probabilities of conceiving in any given month may fall, and they lower as you age, losing steeply to your 40s. Having an abnormal menstrual cycle makes it problematic to calculate while you are ovulating, as a result making it hard to realize the appropriate time to have sex. The much less regularly you have sex, the much less probably you are going to get pregnant. If you have not gotten pregnant after 12 months of seeking to conceive, your probability of turning pregnant can be lower. Talk to your medical doctor regarding tests for female and male infertility. Illnesses or clinical situations can have an effect on pregnancy.

Take this as your pre-pregnancy to-do list

A lot of you may not be pregnant yet but might be planning to. So, here are a few things you can do now to make yourself as healthy as possible for a growing baby.

1. Let’s start by making an appointment with your doctor.

It is very crucial to consult with your doctor before you are planning for a child. The reason behind this is a doctor can scientifically guide you to the process of easily conceiving a child. Moreover, while you are planning for pregnancy your doctor will help you to know whether you have any hidden disease or any underlying severity in your health conditions. Treating off those diseases will undoubtedly help you to get pregnant faster and easier or otherwise can increase the risk in pregnancy or can affect the child’s overall health. It is always advisable that before planning pregnancy undergo a thorough medical check- ups and let your concerned physician know about your entire medical history or whether you had any previous case of serious health issues. Before getting pregnant, your physician will recommend some clinical tests that should be mandatorily performed in order to ensure easy pregnancy and fetal health. Some such tests are listed below:

Immunity towards diseases like Chickenpox, Mumps, Smallpox, Hepatitis A, and B viruses, German measles, or Rubella and so on

• HIV
• Herpes
• Health problems such as thyroid-related issues (with a TSH test), tests on iron- deficiency and sickle cell anemia, thalassemia (genetic anemia),
• Other health conditions, such as toxoplasmosis and parvovirus B19 (also called the fifth disease)
• Other STDs (such as chlamydia, syphilis, and gonorrhea)

When you are preparing to get pregnant, make sure to get fully vaccinated with the essential vaccines of smallpox, chickenpox, mumps, measles, and positively get two full doses of Covid-19 vaccines too, which can otherwise increase the chances of defects and abnormalities during childbirth and can also affect the health of the baby. So, get advice from your doctor related to all necessary medical tests and health check-ups along with your vaccination schedules, to ensure an easy, safe, and faster pregnancy along with healthy childbirth.

2. Do check your gums

There is a link between good oral health and healthy pregnancy. Strange but true. Periodontal disease is associated with preterm birth and low birth weight. Now is the time to meet the dentist to deal with the problem.

3. If you smoke or drink, now is the time to stop

You may already know that for pregnant women cigarettes and alcohol are never okay. They adversely affect the growth of the baby and can cause health problems as they get older. Smoking and drinking can make pregnancy difficult and increase the chance of miscarriage. Talk to your doctor about programs that can help you break these habits.

4. Try your best to reduce your intake of caffeine

Caffeine, as advised by experts is believed to be not so good to have in large amounts during or before pregnancy. Then how would you know how much is ‘too much? According to experts if you have more than two to three cups of coffee and more than five cans of soda or any caffeine-containing drink on each day (which is approximately about 250 milligrams of caffeine intake per day) is considered as excessive consumption of caffeine and can cause adverse effects to the health of your child and can also make you late to get pregnant.

5. Eat good nutritious food

There is no other better time to give up junk food and all its empty calories. Make sure you’re getting plenty of fruits, veggies, whole grains, and lean protein every day. Taking a healthy diet before you conceive can make you less likely to get gestational diabetes, a type that affects pregnant women.

6. Taking folic acid is recommended

Folic acid found naturally in leafy green vegetables and artificially in fortified flour and rice products, has been shown to lower the risk of certain birth defects. In addition to a good diet, experts recommend taking a multivitamin supplement containing folic acid daily 3 months before pregnancy and continuing throughout pregnancy. If this is not your first pregnancy, and you’ve had a previous pregnancy with a birth defect in the brain and spinal cord, doctors would probably recommend a higher dose of 4 mg folic acid daily.

7. Try to reduce your weight

Extra weight can increase the likelihood of problems such as gestational diabetes and high blood pressure during pregnancy. This is a condition called pre-eclampsia. In general, it is not advisable to lose weight during pregnancy. Therefore, if you want to lose weight, you need to start now.

8. Let your doctor know about the medicine you are taking

It is important to tell your doctor about all the medicines, prescriptions, and over-the-counter medicines you are taking, as well as vitamins and herbs. Some of these can affect your baby.

9. Know more about the kind of seafood you eat

You may have heard that it is wise to stay away from mercury-rich fish during pregnancy. However, it can take up to a year for the body to remove the elements from the blood. Twice a week, consuming fish is okay, but skip mercury-rich varieties such as swordfish, tilefish, king mackerel, and sharks.

10. Start going to the gym

Exercise not only helps you achieve a healthy weight but also helps you to get in shape for labor and delivery. If you are pregnant, look for a special prenatal class that is safe for your health (that is for pregnant women).

11. Think about all the positive changes a baby is going to bring to your life

Having a child will affect everything in your life your career, your finances, and your relationship with your spouse or partner, among other things. Nine months can be a pretty short time to figure all of those issues out, so your doctor may be able to give some advice that will help get you ready. Your doctor may also suggest preconception classes at a local hospital if they’re available.

You may also want to know how often you need to have sex

Many couples trying to get pregnant spend a lot of energy planning sex with mathematical accuracy to calculate the optimal time for a woman to ovulate. In theory, this approach makes sense. It’s known that sperm have a very small chance of fertilizing an egg, basically 35 days before ovulation, which is the day of ovulation itself. The best chance is 12 days before ovulation. Doctors recommend having sexual intercourse every other day, one week before ovulation or after menstruation.

But while timing your lovemaking exclusively to those few days makes logical sense, it also has some drawbacks primarily because your body doesn’t always behave with clockwork regularity. Even if your cycle is regular, ovulation can occur at any time during the cycle. If you’re having sex on the day, you think you’re ovulating, and you’re off by a few days, you may be out of luck. So, have sex at least two to three times every week. As long as the man has a normal sperm count, having sex every other day (or every day) further increases your chances of getting pregnant.