Pregnancy Care: Preparing for Parenthood

The choices you make regarding food, lifestyle and pregnancy vitamins, prior to conception and during your baby’s first thousand days are instrumental in establishing the groundwork for their growth, health and ongoing development. Finding a healthcare practitioner can provide valuable support in developing healthy habits that promote the wellbeing of both you and your family.

What Can I Do Before I Fall Pregnant?

Providing your baby with the best possible start to life is the greatest gift a parent can give. The time couples spend optimising their health before conception goes a long way towards achieving a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.

Did you Know?

• The health of both parents is equally important when preparing for conception
• The quality of parental health impacts the health of the following three generations of their family
• Prenatal wellness determines the quality of genetic material contained within the egg and sperm, which influences the quality of the genes that your baby will inherit.

Optimal Habits for a Healthy Pregnancy

Ensuring parents prioritise their health prior to conception significantly lowers the risk of various pregnancy complications. Moreover, this approach also fosters positive health outcomes for the child throughout their lifespan. To achieve these goals, implementing effective strategies to improve body composition, enhance resilience to stress, and mitigate toxin exposure are essential.

• Healthy Weight Management: Maintaining healthy body composition with diet and exercise can improve the likelihood of conception and reduce the risk of your child developing certain health issues (such as allergies, ear infections or eczema). Your healthcare Practitioner can tailor a program to help you reach your goals, which also fits in with your lifestyle.
• Stress Management: Stress can be a major underlying factor affecting fertility and the health of your child, and leave you feeling flat and exhausted. Your healthcare Practitioner can support you with stress management strategies, alongside specific pregnancy vitamins and other supplement recommendations to improve overall wellbeing.
• Managing Exposure to Environmental Toxins: Every day we are exposed to increasing levels of environmental toxins (e.g. plastics, heavy metals, pesticides, mould, etc), which can impact the fertility status of both parents. A detoxification program guided by your healthcare Practitioner before conception can reduce the levels of these toxins in your body and improve your toxin resistance, to help achieve healthy pregnancy outcomes.

Diet and Exercise Strategies

Maintaining a healthy diet before and during pregnancy is crucial for meeting the needs of your body and the developing baby. Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet consisting of:

• Fresh fruits and vegetables in a variety of colours (ideally 2 servings of fruit and 5 servings of vegetables each day)
• High fibre foods to nourish beneficial bacteria and support digestion, including wholegrain bread and pasta, brown rice, fruits and vegetables
• Good quality protein-rich foods such as fish, chicken, free-range eggs, legumes, seeds and tofu
• High quality essential fatty acids from oily fish, avocado, nuts and seeds and cold-pressed oils

Improving your fitness before pregnancy and maintaining an active lifestyle during pregnancy and afterwards, offers numerous physical and emotional benefits including:1

• Less back and pelvic pain
• Muscle support for labour and faster recuperation after pregnancy
• Lower risk of incontinence
• Reduced pregnancy-related constipation
• Enhanced energy levels
• Stress relief and support for mental wellbeing
• Increased ability to cope with the physical demands of parenthood

Prioritise activities that bring you happiness so you’ll be more likely to engage in them regularly. Water-based exercises are generally considered safe during all three trimesters of pregnancy, and can help to alleviate the weight-induced aches and pains due to the buoyancy of water. Talk to your healthcare Practitioner about other enjoyable and safe activities during pregnancy.

How to Optimise your Health Before and During Pregnancy with Supplemental Support

Pregnancy increases the demands for certain nutrients due to the additional life your body is developing and supporting. Yet, overcoming the challenges of daily life can sometimes make it difficult to meet all your nutritional needs solely through diet. That’s where supplemental support can play a vital role. By combining dietary strategies with the use of pregnancy supplements, you can support optimal nutrient levels to ensure your body has all the resources it needs for a thriving pregnancy.

Your Practitioner can recommend specific supplements to address your health concerns and provide support during preconception, pregnancy and postpartum. Let’s explore some ingredients that have been shown to support a healthy pregnancy and foetal development:

• Folic acid and 5-MTHF: Supports genetic development of your baby and reduces the incidence of neural tube defects.
• Iodine: Supports foetal growth and brain development and maternal thyroid function for energy
• Lutein and choline: Assists growth and development of the brain and central nervous system in the foetus through pregnancy and early life.
• Vitamin D and vitamin K2: Supports baby’s bone development and immune function.
• Iron: Supports increased iron demands of pregnancy, assists maternal energy production and foetal brain development.
• Zinc: Essential for foetal growth and development
• B vitamins: Supports maternal energy production and baby’s brain development and growth.

Metagenics Pregnancy Care Advanced is scientifically formulated with a combination of ingredients that have researched benefits in supporting a healthy pregnancy. If you’re trying to conceive, already pregnant or in the postpartum haze, chat to your healthcare practitioner to see if Pregnancy Care Advanced may be suitable for you and to discuss a personalised pregnancy care plan to help you in your journey to parenthood.

References:

1. Department of Health and Aged Care. For Pregnancy. Australian Government. Updated May 20, 2021. Accessed July 12, 2024. https://www.health.gov.au/topics/physical-activity-and-exercise/pregnancy