Planning for baby, have a quick look at the checklist to help you boost your chance:
Change lifestyle habits: Smoking, alcohol consumption and taking recreational drugs during pre-conception stage drastically reduce the odds of conceiving. Moreover, the consumption of these raises complications during pregnancy and birth defects in infants.
- Get to a healthy weight: Keep the Body Mass Index between 20 and 30 for the best chances of conception. Calculate BMI by following the below mentioned steps:
- Work out your height in metres, and multiply this figure by itself.
- Measure your weight in kilograms.
- Divide your weight by the square of your height. The answer is your BMI.
- Go in for multivitamins and prenatal vitamins: Six months before conception start taking prenatal vitamins, including folic acid, calcium and other nutrients as these are very important for having a healthy pregnancy and baby.
- Once you have a good idea of your ovulation cycle, try to have sex three days before, one day before and a day after to maximize your chances of getting pregnant.
- Get checked for HIV: With proper knowledge even an HIV-positive women can spare their babies from contracting the disease.
- Stop using birth control pills: Stop taking pills and give your body break for at least a month or two to come back to its own natural rhythm and then you can start trying to conceive.
- Take an appointment with your gynaecologist: Discuss with your doctor your lifestyle habits, health concerns and regular medications, if any. Your gynaecologist will be the best person to guide you through.
- Know your blood group: Both partners should be aware of their blood groups before they try to conceive. In case your blood group is not compatible with your partner, your blood type may also be incompatible with the baby’s. This could lead to anemia and more serious problems for the infant at birth. RH disease, which results from blood group incompatibility, can be treated easily during the pregnancy.
