7 Tips for Getting Your Body Ready for Pregnancy

The main reasons to plan ahead are to ensure you’re in the best shape possible to get pregnant and carry a child to term. Here are some helpful hints to get you started.

Our knowledgeable team at Pflugerville OBGYN offers gynecological and obstetric care for expectant mamas and more at our office in Pflugerville, Texas.

Planning your pregnancy

A healthy pregnancy begins long before your baby is born, or even conceived. If you’re hoping to get pregnant soon, our caring doctors offer seven tips to prepare your body for all the changes.

1. Eat a balanced diet

Healthy eating is vital for everyone. It’s even more crucial when you’re trying to conceive a child. Consume many vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, like fish and chicken, whole grains, and low-fat dairy. Stay away from packaged foods with little nutritional value and keep your caffeine, which may lower conception rates and increase the risk of miscarriage, to a minimum.

1. Watch your weight

It may sound counterintuitive to maintain a healthy weight before getting pregnant. However, women near their optimal weight face fewer medical issues when pregnant, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Even underweight women remain at risk of giving birth to babies with low birth weights. Reach your healthiest weight for a happy medium.

2. Take your prenatal vitamins

We recommend prenatal vitamins containing folic acid, which helps reduce birth defects in newborns.

3. Reduce alcohol and smoking

We’ve all learned how smoking and alcohol negatively affect a growing fetus. They also lower your chances of getting pregnant in the first place. Alcohol influences hormone levels and ovulation. Chemicals found in cigarette smoke damage both eggs and sperm, so both women and men who smoke and drink face fertility issues. It’s best to limit your alcohol and quit smoking at least a few months before conceiving.

1. Calculate your cycle

Keeping track of your menstrual cycle reveals your optimal conceiving times. Most women reach their most fertile time of month approximately five days before, on, or after ovulation.

4. Exercise regularly

If you currently exercise, keep going. Otherwise, each week, engage in at least five hours of aerobic activity, such as power walking, cycling, or swimming, and strength-training. Consider adding pelvic floor exercises, called Kegels, to improve muscle tone. 

5. Schedule a preconception checkup

A pre-pregnancy checkup helps you and your doctor foresee any possible complications affecting your pregnancy. It’s important to manage chronic conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or lupus, that may lead to pregnancy problems, and even birth defects, if not under control.

Our caring medical team helps ensure you and your future child remain in tip-top shape.

Your pre-pregnancy exam

It’s important to go into any pregnancy with your eyes wide open. During your exam, our team discusses your:

• Family medical history
• Current and past health issues
• Vaccine status
• Supplements and medicines you take, or should take, that could affect your fetus
• Long term health issues

We realize that lowering your stress level and improving your sleep quality helps during every phase of life. However, it will be much harder to rest once your baby is born. So, we recommend banking hours before and during pregnancy. We also suggest meditation, deep breathing exercises, mindful movement, such as yoga and T’ai Chi, and other stress-relieving, body-strengthening practices.

If you’re hoping to get pregnant soon or wish to discuss other gynecological issues, schedule an appointment with Pflugerville OBGYN in Pflugerville, Texas, today.