Preconception Care (PCC) is the best way to take care of your fertility, support your pregnancy and ensure the best of health for your future child.

PCC is the conscious application of a ‘health plan’ that involves both prospective parents. As such, it can help with:

Knowing that having children requires some planning means that you can take responsible actions to ensure you have done the most to help make that happen. Developing a ‘reproductive health plan’ can help you take into account genetic, lifestyle and dietary risk factors and be aware of your reproductive health for life so that conception can be planned. There is a saying that for family planning you need to think about when you want your last child and work backwards from there!

If you have been on the oral contraceptive pill it is important to consider a 3-4 month Pill-free break before trying to conceive. Your ‘true’ cycle will only reveal itself once you are off it and sometimes establishing a regular cycle can take many months, while your chances of conceiving may be affected for up to a year. The pill can also cause low levels of nutrients important for conception, which take time to recover.

If your parenthood has been delayed for whatever reason, or you are an older woman or man who is keen to have more children, you can practice healthy habits that will help to preserve the health of your reproductive system.

Practicing PCC may well enhance your chances of conception through the removal of ‘fertility hurdles’ associated with poor nutrition, being overweight, medications, recreational drugs, toxin exposure and stress. Improving nutrition is an essential objective of PCC, which can help you have a healthy ovulation and conception.

The risk of poor pregnancy outcomes such as miscarriage, still-birth, premature births, low birth weight and birth defects are potentially reducible through PCC. More than half of all women of reproductive age have a risk factor that could affect a pregnancy (e.g. medical issue, poor diet or lifestyle, toxin exposure) and since almost half of all pregnancies are unplanned, many pregnancies are potentially vulnerable. The first pregnancy appointment with a midwife, obstetrician or GP, which usually occurs around week 12 or later, comes too late to prevent a number of serious mother and child health problems. The foetus is most susceptible to developing certain problems in the first 10 weeks after conception. This means that PCC is the best approach to protecting the health of a baby.

If you had a previous problem with a pregnancy or baby then you may need special medical care or extra nutrients (e.g. folic acid) before you conceive again.

If you have a medical condition (e.g. diabetes, high blood pressure, lupus, blood clotting problems) you will need to have this stabilised, with possibly a change to safer medication, before you conceive to ensure a healthy pregnancy and baby. If you have diabetes, normalisation of your blood glucose levels before you conceive can dramatically reduce the risk of miscarriage and malformations in your baby.

The nutrition your egg and an early embryo receives in the very early days (just before ovulation and the few days after conception) determines the health of a future baby. Many Australian women have lower than recommended intakes of essential nutrients prior to and after conception. Many nutrients including iodine, iron, folic acid and omega-3 fatty acids need to be at optimal levels prior to conceiving in order to ensure the health of the pregnancy. For example, it is known that folic acid and multivitamin/minerals have their best effects in reducing birth defects when taken from 3 months before conception.

Establishing good nutrition and health before conceiving also means that you are set up for continued healthy habits for a healthy pregnancy and baby.