Prenatal care key to healthy pregnancy

The most impor­tant thing preg­nant women can do for their babies is take care of them­selves. Pre­na­tal care is the key to a healthy preg­nancy. Of the four mil­lion women who give birth each year in the United States, one-third expe­ri­ence some type of pregnancy-related com­pli­ca­tion, accord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion. Babies of moth­ers who do not receive pre­na­tal care are three times more likely to have low birth weights and five times more likely to die than babies born to moth­ers who receive care.

Good pre­na­tal care includes reg­u­lar check-ups, spe­cial nutri­tion, ade­quate rest and reg­u­lar exer­cise. It should begin while you are try­ing to get preg­nant or as soon as you find out you are preg­nant. This is the time to get med­ical con­di­tions (such as high blood pres­sure, dia­betes or asthma) under con­trol, stop drink­ing and smok­ing, review with your physi­cian the med­ica­tions you are tak­ing, and reduce expo­sure to toxic chem­i­cals. You should also begin tak­ing a pre­na­tal vit­a­min with 400 to 800 mil­ligrams of folic acid as early as three months prior to pregnancy.

If you have a chronic con­di­tion such as dia­betes or a heart prob­lem, are older than 35, or have an increased risk for preterm labor or some other com­pli­cat­ing fac­tor, you may be referred to a physi­cian with exper­tise in high-risk pregnancies.

Main­tain­ing a reg­u­lar appoint­ment sched­ule with your physi­cian is a must to keep you and your baby healthy. If there are no com­pli­ca­tions or risk fac­tors, you can expect to see your physi­cian once a month through the 28th week of preg­nancy, twice a month through the 36th week and once a week after the 36th week.

Your first exam typ­i­cally occurs at six to eight weeks. Your first trimester will include a com­plete phys­i­cal, pelvic exam and Pap test, blood draw and urine sam­ple for lab­o­ra­tory work. We’ll cal­cu­late your due date and answer any ques­tions you have.

Later pre­na­tal vis­its will con­tinue to review signs and symp­toms and mon­i­tor your progress. We’ll lis­ten to your baby’s heart­beat, assess fetal devel­op­ment, mea­sure your weight gain and admin­is­ter rou­tine tests for ane­mia, blood type, HIV and other infec­tions, ges­ta­tional dia­betes, Down syn­drome and immu­nity to chicken pox and rubella. Other test­ing may be ordered depend­ing on your age, fam­ily his­tory, per­sonal health his­tory, eth­nic­ity or results from pre­vi­ous tests.

Many par­ents eagerly antic­i­pate an ultra­sound exam that gives them an excit­ing first look on their baby. We typ­i­cally do an ultra­sound dur­ing your first visit to con­firm the preg­nancy, and offer another in the 18th to 20th week to look at the baby’s anatomy and make sure the preg­nancy is devel­op­ing normally.

The old say­ing is that when you are preg­nant, you are eat­ing for two. We rec­om­mend that you add a daily intake of 300 calo­ries from a well-balanced diet. A weight gain of 25–35 pounds is nor­mal dur­ing pregnancy.

Reg­u­lar exer­cise dur­ing preg­nancy relieves stress, decreases com­mon dis­com­forts such as back­aches and fatigue and builds sta­mina for labor and deliv­ery. We rec­om­mend 20–30 min­utes a day, five days a week of aer­o­bic con­di­tion­ing and light weight lift­ing. Walk­ing is a great activ­ity for begin­ners. Women already accus­tomed to an exer­cise pro­gram should be able to main­tain their rou­tine so long as they don’t work out to the point of exhaustion.

For more infor­ma­tion or to sign up for our child­birth edu­ca­tion, breast­feed­ing or baby care basics classes, visit OhioHealth.com/classes.

Dr. William Ham­mett is a physi­cian with Cen­tral Ohio OB/GYN in Delaware and an active mem­ber of the Grady Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal med­ical staff.

Posted by Grady Memorial Hospital on May 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.