Monday, April 29, 2019

Women need more health awareness before attempting pregnancy, researchers say

Inasmuch as these women have a high level of interest in becoming pregnant, one would think that they would be more knowledgeable than the average women in pregnancy preparation. However, a recent study by the Ottawa Fertility Centre (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) found that women entering an infertility program had gaps in knowledge in this area. The researchers evaluated 400 women who were enrolling in an infertility program. They found that patients were well informed about health optimization, folic acid consumption, infectious disease exposure, medication use, partner abuse, smoking, and recreational drug use. However, they were not well informed about the risks of daily alcohol consumption, advanced maternal age, exercise, cat litter exposure, and consumption of fish and certain other foods. In addition, they were uncertain about the importance of rubella immunization and family history. Women who had never had a child were less knowledgeable about the significance of rubella immunization, exercise, recreational drug use, cat litter exposure, and fish consumption. Women who had a higher level of education had more knowledge about the effects of the mother's age, exercise, alcohol exposure, and smoking on pregnancy. The authors concluded that there were gaps in knowledge, even in the highly motivated population of infertile women who are planning to be pregnant. They added that the results of this survey suggest that women need and want their physicians to educate them about optimal pre-pregnancy lifestyle.


A wealth of information is available on the Internet in regard to pregnancy preparation; furthermore, many excellent books are available on the topic. If you are planning for pregnancy, it is important to be well-informed. Information from well-meaning friends and relatives may be factual or erroneous. Internet information also can be inaccurate. If information is not from a 100% reliable source, it is prudent to reconfirm the information from another source and/or a healthcare professional.

Source: http://www.edtreatmentindia.com/

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