The newborn’s health state depends on
parent’s preparation.
The 10 followings will help you prevent
fetal malformations.
Provide yourself with folic acid
Every woman at child-bearing age needs to
have folic acid supplements for at least 3 times a month before getting
pregnant. Lacking folic acid is the reason of some congenital malformations and
neural tube defects (congenital spondylolysis defect is the most popular) in
fetus. Those defects can appear in the early stage of pregnancy; it even
happens before the woman knows that she’s pregnant so that she can timely
provide herself with Folate. It’s also too late when you have the first
pregnancy test (often at the 10th week).
Go for medical examinations before getting pregnant
According to doctor’s recommendations,
women in reproductive age should have a pre-pregnancy test before pregnant.
It’s due to the fact that the mother’s pre-pregnancy health is proved to have a
big role in foretelling the health state of her and her child in pregnancy. It
also makes sense to women that have had chronic diseases before.
You
should take prenatal check-up regularly.
Do not drink alcohol
A congenital defect that can be totally
prevented is fetal alcohol syndrome. The low-rated bad effects of the syndrome
can cause intellectual and behavior matters. In the worse situation, the
defects can cause stillbirth. Up to now, there has been no alcohol absorption
limit during pregnancy recommended. Therefore, pregnant women should entirely avoid
alcohol and alcoholic products while pregnant.
Stop smoking and passive smoking
Stay
away from tobacco smoke.
According to March and Dimes Foundation, if
pregnant women are isolated from tobacco smoke, the miscarriage risk will
decrease 5%; the rate of low birth weight will decrease 20%; the decrease of
premature birth is 8%, stillbirth is 11 %, and neonatal mortality is 5%.
Avoid contact with chemicals
Chemicals are believed to be the reason of
birth defects. Therefore, to ensure your children’s future, you’d better avoid
exposure to chemicals, including the chemicals that you use daily. In case your
job requires contact with detergents like working at enterprises, factory or
studio, you should always use gloves and masks or gas marks; the place you work
has to have ventilation system guaranteed. Pregnant women who work in medical
environment need to receive special care for having regular contact with
disinfectants.
Proper eating habits
Eating fresh food that has a variety in
color is the most natural way to maintain a healthy pregnancy.
Nutrition is one of
element that decides a healthy pregnancy. You can do some studies about
pregnant nutrition, but the advice for you is eating a variety of healthy foods
and limiting using industrial processing foods. Moreover, pregnant women also
need to be provided with vitamin during pregnancy.
Early HPV detection
Though HPV virus
doesn’t cause birth defects, it can cause premature birth. Babies who are born
prematurely have the brain and lung underdeveloped which results in severe
brain and lung impairment. In conjecture, 50% of people who had sex were
infected with HPV for once in their life.
Don’t take medicine in random
While pregnant, every pill that you take
must be carefully referred by obstetricians and specialists (you need to be
honest about your pregnancy state, so that the obstetrician can give you the
right prescription). Even to the medicines that treat common sickness and
require no prescription, you need to have permission to use them in order not
to harm the fetus.
Genetic
assessment helps you to know about the fetal risk of birth defects.
Genetic assessment
It’s difficult to define the reason of most
birth defect cases, but if your wife’s/husband’s family has a history in having
any defects, the genetic assessment can help you analyze the risk of having
defects. By the result of genetic assessment, the doctor can diagnose the risk
of defects of you and your spouse so that both of you could make the right
decision about getting pregnant and having babies.
Relax
It’s proved that, during pregnancy, the
mother’s heavy state of stress can cause birth defects. Stress also relates to
the increase of miscarriage’s risk, premature birth and infertility. There’re
many ways to release your stress, such as doing exercise and yoga frequently.
