April 20, 2009

Pregnancy Pathway, Conception — Health Status

dancingthrupregnancy conception, exercise, pregnancy behavior, conception, environment, exercise, Genetics, health, implantation, metabolic syndromes, pregnancy

Today: How the moth­er’s health sta­tus at the time of con­cep­tion affects the preg­nan­cy.

For com­plete graph­ic, see Feb. 5 or 23 post.

When a woman becomes preg­nant, her health can be a major fac­tor how her preg­nan­cy will pro­ceed. If she has been exposed to a vir­u­lent infec­tion, it may have an impact on how well the implan­ta­tion goes. If she has meta­bol­ic syn­drome, she is at risk for com­pli­ca­tions such as ges­ta­tion­al dia­betes.

On the oth­er hand, if she has tak­en care of her­self, is phys­i­cal­ly fit and well nour­ished, is well rest­ed and has not been exposed to ill­ness­es that induce dra­mat­ic changes in her immune sys­tem, she has done her best to cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion in which her body is best pre­pared for the rig­ors of preg­nan­cy.

There are still genet­ic and envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors that can affect the course of the preg­nan­cy, but behav­ior is the one fac­tor that women have con­trol over. At Danc­ing Thru Preg­nan­cy we are fond of the notion that if you know a cer­tain behav­ior is the best for a sit­u­a­tion, it is smart to chose that behav­ior; if you do not, you are sab­o­tag­ing your­self.

So, if preg­nan­cy is in your head­lights, eat right, exer­cise, and be cau­tious about expo­sure to ill­ness and infec­tion. Wash your hands, use one of the hand cleansers, prac­tice safe sex (okay, so if you are try­ing to get pg, this may change, but in the mean­time!).

We wel­come com­ments on what you are doing to be healthy for preg­nan­cy!