During pregnancy, the rates of obese or overweight women are increasing day by day in Australia. During pregnancy carrying extra weight always increases the risk of adverse health outcomes for both mother and baby. To reduce pregnancy complications, weight reduction should be motivated during the pre-conception period. Lower socioeconomic women groups are at greater risk of adverse perinatal outcomes. But they are less likely to participate in prenatal counseling than higher socioeconomic groups. They were generally unaware of the provision and concept of this counseling, but they seemed to be interested in participation. Evidence-based development of interventions is necessary to increase the understanding and accessibility of this counseling type.
To optimize the health of women and their partners before pregnancy counseling is important as it comprises behavioral, social, and biological health interventions and thus improves health-related outcomes for their children and themselves.
What is preconception counseling?
Discussing your plans with your doctor prior to becoming pregnant is known as preconception counseling. It can successfully provide a healthy environment for the fetus and is able to prevent other pregnancy related problems as well as birth defects.
Why preconception counseling is important?
For the developmental process, this advance preconceptional counselling is crucially important. Before and in the early stages of pregnancy poor maternal diet and health can lead to poor birth outcomes, long-term effects on metabolic and cardiovascular disease, and impaired fetal and infant growth. The developmental origins of health and disease (DOHAD) are fetal programming, whereby the intrauterine environment is understood to have a profound impact on one’s entire lifetime health. Obesity is one example of this. Children of mothers who are obese during pregnancy are overweight and more likely to develop metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.
Which preconception counseling interventions improve fetal and maternal outcomes?
After research, it has been found that women and their partners who receive counseling are more likely to have improved knowledge and show positive health behaviors. Such behaviors include increased use of folic acid, greater engagement in antenatal care, and decreased smoking. It can improve pregnancy results efficiently. Some key examples that improve outcomes are-
1. Diabetes– Women with type 1 or type 2 diabetes are advised to control blood glucose levels. Thus, it can reduce the incidence of miscarriage, birth weight abnormalities, preterm birth, and congenital malformations.
2. Obesity– A study has shown that for women who are obese, a 10% decrease in pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) effectively decreases stillbirth risk by 10%. The World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity has named early conception and prenatal care as one of six key strategies that have the potential to break the cycle of non-communicable diseases.
3. Folic acid– In the preconception period, the addition of a 400–500 µg folic acid supplement can effectively prevent neural tube defects such as anencephaly and spina bifida.
Staying as healthy as possible in the months before trying to conceive. It boosts your chances of falling pregnant and also gives your baby a better chance of good health throughout their whole life. After preconception care, you have to follow some simple steps which will help you become as healthy and fit as possible before you become a mum. It plays a key role in preparing for a pregnancy. Preconceptional counseling is very important for women, who have a history of recurrent early pregnancy loss. It will give reassurance to a woman that everything possible is being done to avoid future pregnancy loss.