Pre Pregnancy Counselling
The goal of prepregnancy care is to reduce the risk of adverse health effects for the woman, fetus, and neonate by working with the woman to optimize health, address modifiable risk factors, and provide education about healthy pregnancy. All those planning to initiate a pregnancy should be counseled, including heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and gender nonconforming individuals. Counseling can begin with the following question: “Would you like to become pregnant in the next year?” Prepregnancy counseling is appropriate whether the reproductive-aged patient is currently using contraception or planning pregnancy. Because health status and risk factors can change over time, prepregnancy counseling should occur several times during a woman’s reproductive lifespan, increasing her opportunity for education and potentially maximizing her reproductive and pregnancy outcomes. Many chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, psychiatric illness, and thyroid disease have implications for pregnancy outcomes and should be optimally managed before pregnancy.