What is pregnancy.

Pregnancy is the term used to describe when a woman is carrying one or more offspring, known as a fetus, inside of her. In most cases, the fetus grows in the uterus. In a pregnancy there can be more than one gestations like in twins or triplets.

One of the most exciting times in a women life is becoming a mother.  Whether you’re considering motherhood, trying to conceive or already pregnant, expectant mothers must be concerned not only with their developing babies health, but also they have to be concerned about their own health.

Even though pregnancy can be a fun and joyous time it can also be a time of uncertainty and in some cases worry in the up coming weeks.

You should prepare yourself for your pregnancy with some good preconception planning.  Finding the latest information on child health care is important.

The first step is to get the knowledge you need to keep yourself and your baby healthy from the beginning.  There’s a lot to learn especially if it’s your first pregnancy.

There are also a number of areas of interest to describe the things you need to learn about from fertilization to the day your baby is born.

Things such as:

• Getting Pregnant
• Pregnancy Test
• Labor and Delivery
• Pregnancy Signs and Symptoms
• Pregnancy Stages
• Pregnancy Types
• Preconception
• Breastfeeding
• Pregnancy Tools
• After Pregnancy
• Cord Blood Banking
• and mush, mush more…

The next thing we recommend is to find a health care professional that you are comfortable with to care for you and your child throughout your pregnancy.  There are many changes your body will go through, like hormonal changes, emotional changes, physical changes and many more.  Your body must change its physiological and homeostatic mechanisms in pregnancy to ensure the fetus is provided for.

The most important two things is to plan from the beginning (even before you get pregnant if you are planning to conceive)  and find your health care professional.  Your health care professional will help to determine your due date and what month or months you are in if you are pregnant.

This website is to help you explore the research in this field and to help answer the questions you have about your pregnancy.  I am not a medical doctor and this information is solely for informational purposes. It is not intended to provide medical advice.

There are some preconception planning  you want to do prior to getting pregnant.  You want to give your baby the best start in life by getting yourself healthy before you get pregnant.

Before pregnancy and having a baby you want to consider some preconception planning, the things you need to do to prepare for all the pregnancy stages.

Some things like chart your menstrual cycle, reading your cervical mucus and pinpointing ovulation. Other things like learning about pregnancy test, how to use it, how accurate the tests are and when to test and even dealing with fertility problems if any.

Here are a few preconception tips for a healthy conception:

• Preconception care visit with your doctor.. you can’t have a healthy pregnancy if you are not healthy yourself.
• Start taking a prenatal vitamin with folic acid… think about what medications you should stop taking in the preconception stage.
• Get to your ideal body weight and keep it with a healthy diet… Eating healthy before you get pregnant will make a big difference in the health of your baby.
• Quite Smoking, quite alcohol and drugs…. do I need to even go here.  Do you know what these bad habits will do to your baby?
• Genetic History… getting a genetic screening may determine any genetic diseases.
• Minimize or eliminate exposure to toxins and infection… some toxins and infections may take awhile to get out of your system.
• Check your Immunizations… are you up to date on your shots.  You don’t want to get them while you are pregnancy because they could cause birth defects.
• Chart Your Cycles… it helps to keep up with what you need to do.
• Talk with your husband and get financially prepared.

As you can see preconception planning can go a long way.  You do not want to have to worry about these things after you are pregnant.

There are a lot of pregnancy signs and symptoms you want to know about as well. Pregnancy symptoms are different from woman to woman but understanding the signs and symptoms is important because the symptom you having could be related to something that is not pregnancy related.

Some of the symptoms to look far:

• Missed menstrual period.
• Morning sickness
• Fatigue
• Tender breasts
• Constipation
• Fainting
• Dizziness
• Weight Gain
• Swollen Feet/Ankles
• Frequent Urination
• Nausea
• Tired
• Vomiting
• Weakness
• Lightheadedness

Other things you will want to know about are the pregnancy types because there are many types of pregnancies and not all of them are normal and could cause some serious pregnancy complications.

You may want to consider cord blood banking .  The blood in your babies umbilical cord  is rich in stem cells which are used in the treatment of several life threatening diseases. Your baby may need them later.

Now that your head is spinning, you need to think about what you want to do after pregnancy ,like are you considering breastfeeding?

While nothing can guarantee a perfectly healthy pregnancy, following some simple advice can give both you and your baby the best chance possible just by some preconception planning.