Discuss how preconception care contributes to healthy pregnancy and positive pregnancy outcomes.
Preconception care is a set of interventions that seek to identify as well as modify the biomedical, behavioral and social risks to the woman's health or pregnancy outcome through prevention and management. With this in mind, steps should be taken before conception or early in the pregnancy to attain the best possible outcome. The article stated that recent evidence confirms the correlation between environmental factors and illness, with 70-90 percent of illness being caused by such factors. These determinants interact with our genome to maintain health or cause illness. We are most vulnerable to these factors when we are completely dependent on a "host" to even finish our first 9 months of development. When looking at figure 1 in the article, we see that there are only 2 determinants that make up the environment sphere, these are "are we getting what we need?" and "are we being exposed to things that are toxic?". For a developed female, minor deficiencies or exposures to toxic substances may affect them slightly with temporary and reversible effects, due to having a more developed body. Compare this to a fetus only starting to create more cells, directly tapped into the mother's bloodstream sharing any and all nutrients or toxins that can pass the placental barrier. The vulnerability of infants to changes in their development is addressed by preconception care. Preconception care encompasses issues that may affect the fetus in one way or another, this includes: behavioral, chronic diseases, genetics, medications, sexually transmitted infections, and vaccination. In order to reduce maternal and fetal morbidity it is important that men and women are educated, counselled and assessed prior to conception in order to create an ideal environment for the conception and development of a fetus. This ideal environment reduces the risks for the fetus as well as the mother ensuring that they live healthy lives throughout and after the pregnancy.
Sources:
Genuis, S. J., & Genuis, R. A. (2016). Preconception care: A new standard of care within maternal health services. BioMed Research International, 2016, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/6150976
Preconception Care: A Guide for Optimizing Outcomes. (n.d.). Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/2026/