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Pregnancy

Optimally, all pregnancies would be planned well before conception. Currently its estimated that 40% of all pregnancies are unplanned. This means that many women become pregnant before they have had a chance to prepare for it.

The ideal time to start learning about pregnancy is not when a woman is already pregnant. In order for a future mother to maximize her chances of having a healthy baby, she needs to know what she can do before she conceives and then what to do after she learns she is pregnant.

For a woman, pregnancy planning means learning everything she can about how her own health and that of her baby can be optimized. For example, the expectant mother needs to know about those diseases that can complicate a pregnancy by their existence or their treatment, such as depression, epilepsy, thyroid disease, asthma, lupus, or diabetes.

If the mother smokes, she must stop, because women who smoke have a higher incidence of miscarriages and stillbirths. She needs to be aware of the dangers of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. She must also know which drugs and medications she can continue to use safely and which ones she must avoid.

A woman who has children devotes a large amount of her life to motherhood. Although a woman's fertility is limited roughly to a 40 year period, her mothering responsibilities may last considerably longer -- 60 years or so. And most mothers never cease being concerned about the health and welfare of their children.