You’ve been trying to get pregnant for months—maybe even years—and it’s finally happened: Your pregnancy test is positive.
After focusing for so long on conceiving, you may be wondering what to do now that you are pregnant. While there’s no way to guarantee a healthy pregnancy, there are many things you can do to lower the risk of birth defects and miscarriage. By making these dozen healthy choices, recommended by the March of Dimes and fertility experts, you’ll boost your chances of having a healthy baby.
1. Call to Schedule Your First Prenatal Medical Visit
If you conceived fairly easily and you’re in good general health, your first prenatal check-up will probably not be for several weeks. If you’re considered at high risk of problems, it may be sooner. At that first visit, your obstetrician, midwife, or family doctor will check your blood pressure, weigh you, figure out your due date, test for various infections that could harm your baby, do a urine analysis, monitor any previous health problems you might have, perform an internal pelvic exam, and do a Pap test, if you haven’t had one recently.
2. Let Your Fertility Specialist Know the Treatment Worked
If you’ve used assisted reproduction, your specialist will probably want to see you immediately. He or she may monitor the very earliest stage of your pregnancy. For instance, the infertility specialist may want to schedule an ultrasound to check on the baby’s development. He or she may also prescribe medications or hormone supplements, depending on the cause of your infertility. “In most IVF cases, there are specific medications which will be required through the initial period of pregnancy, the most common being progesterone supplementation,” says Lee C. Kao, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
{loadposition babyname} 3. Have Your Medications Checked Out
Certain medications taken by a mother can harm a developing fetus. For example, the acne drug Accutane, the psoriasis drugs Tegison and Soriatane, and several blood pressure medications can cause birth defects or low birth weight. Ideally, you should have spoken to your doctor before conceiving regarding any medications you take, but if you haven’t already done so, do it now. Don’t forget to mention any herbal supplements or megadoses of vitamins you take; some of these can cause pregnancy problems, too.
4. Start Taking a Daily Prenatal Vitamin Containing Folic Acid
Studies show that folic acid, a B vitamin, helps prevent birth defects of the brain and spinal cord if taken early in pregnancy, when the baby’s neural tube is developing. Begin taking a vitamin with folic acid as soon as you know you’re pregnant, or even better, start taking it while you’re trying to conceive and continue it throughout your pregnancy. These vitamins are available by prescription and over-the-counter. According to the March of Dimes, if all women took adequate folic acid supplementation—400 micrograms every day—starting before conception and continuing throughout the first several months of pregnancy, the number of babies born with a neural tube defect could drop by as much as 70 percent. Folic acid is also found in foods such as lentils, asparagus, spinach, black beans, peanuts, orange juice, enriched breads and pasta, romaine lettuce, and broccoli, but the best way to ensure that you’re getting enough is to take a supplement.
5. Pay Attention to How Much You Eat
You will need to eat for two, but that doesn’t mean you can load up on junk food. If you are at a normal weight when you conceive, you should gain between 25 and 35 pounds during pregnancy. That translates to about 300 extra calories a day—the equivalent of a glass of skim milk, a piece of fruit, and a slice of whole-wheat bread. (Calcium is more important than ever during pregnancy, so try to spend some of those extra calories on calcium-rich foods such as milk, cheese, and yogurt.) If you are overweight prior to conception you should gain no more than 15 to 25 pounds, and if you are underweight, you should gain no less than 28 to 40 pounds.
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