INTRODUCTION Preconception care includes any intervention to optimize a woman's health before pregnancy with the aim to improve maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) outcomes. Preconception care bridges the gap in the continuum of care, and addresses pre-pregnancy health risks and health problems that could have negative maternal and fetal consequences. It therefore has potential to further...

BACKGROUND Preconception care is defined as the promotion of the health and well-being of a woman and her partner before pregnancy. Improving preconception health can result in improved reproductive health outcomes. China has issued latest version official guideline for preconception care in 2011. The objective of this cross-sectional study is to determine whether there is a variation in the qu...

BACKGROUND Paternal preconception risk factors such as smoking, exposure to environmental substances, medication use, overweight and advanced age correlate with the occurrence of malformations and birth defects in the offspring. Nonetheless, the prevalence of risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes in the male population has been scarcely investigated and no report on preconception interven...

BACKGROUND Preconception care involves health promotion to reduce risk factors that might affect women and couples of childbearing age. The risk factors of adverse reproductive outcomes include recognized genetic diseases in the family or the individual, previous congenital diseases, miscarriage, prematurity, fetal growth restriction, infertility, chronic maternal diseases, lifestyle, and occup...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the association of preconception counseling with markers of care and maternal characteristics in women with pregestational diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The study includes data from a regional multi-center survey on 588 women with pregestational diabetes who delivered a singleton pregnancy between 2001 and 2004. Logistic regression was used to obtain crude and a...

IN BRIEF Women with diabetes who are of reproductive age should receive preconception risk assessment and counseling to maximize pregnancy outcomes. This article summarizes the concept of preconception care for women with diabetes and provides a description of an implementation of collaborative preconception care for primary care and obstetrics and gynecology specialty providers.

BACKGROUND Despite strong evidence of the benefits of preconception interventions for improving pregnancy outcomes, the delivery and uptake of preconception care and periconceptional folate supplementation remain low. General practitioners play a central role in the delivery of preconception care. Understanding general practitioners' perceptions of the barriers and enablers to implementing prec...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have published national recommendations for improving preconception health and health care in response to unfavorable aspects of the health status of women and children in the United States. The publication explains that the national recommendations are part of a strategic plan for improving preconception health through the provision of clinical ca...

OBJECTIVES Adequate preconception maternal health care is essential to reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancy outcomes and complications. Still, many women are exposed to a number of unhealthy risk factors both before and early in pregnancy. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of a number of important preconception risk factors using data from a recent multicenter study in Italy. METHO...

Background: Preconception health has become an integral part of global maternal and child health, whereas preconception care has been recognized as the next frontier for improving pregnancy outcomes. The literature shows that the language surrounding the concept of preconception health and care is mainly focused on risk factors and often confined within the biomedicine-oriented risk reduction f...