Preconception care involves providing health interventions to women and couples before conception to improve health and reduce risk factors. It aims to secure optimal health for both parents to improve chances of conception and reduce risks of complications. Key components of preconception care include screening for nutritional deficiencies, genetic conditions, infections like HIV, and risk behaviors like tobacco use. It also involves health promotion, counseling, and treating existing conditions to help ensure women and their partners are healthy when they conceive.

1. PRE CONCEPTION CARE
PRESENTED BY
MRS.V.ELIZEBETH RANI
READER

2. Preconception care
Maximizing the gains for maternal and
child health

3. Preconception care
 DEFINITION
Preconception care is the
provision of biomedi- cal,
behavioural and social health
interventions to women and
couples before conception
occurs.

4. Preconception care AIMS
 To improve their health status, and reducing behaviors
and individual and environmental factors that contribute
to poor maternal and child health outcomes.
 To improve maternal and child health, in both the short
and long term .
 Opportunities to prevent and control diseases occur at
multiple stages of life; strong public health programmes
that use a life-course perspective from infancy through
childhood and adolescence to adulthood are needed.
 To improve maternal and child health, it brings health
benefits to the adolescents, women and men, irrespective
of their plans to become parents.

5. Preconception care AIMS
To secure optimal health & nutritional condition in both
parents not only improves the chances of conception but
reduces the possibility of prenatal death & many congenital
anomalies.
To ensure that the women & her partner are in optimal state of
physical & emotional heath at the onset of pregnancy.
To access normal health by a child bearing women, while at
the same time identifying
 Existing or emerging illness or disease which may have gone undetected
before.
 Existing risk for the women who may become pregnant.
 Existing risk which may affect a foetus if the women doesn’t become
pregnant.

6. Preconception care AIMS
To promote the prenatal health which include developing
positive attitude about sexuality , womanhood & child
bearing.
To benefit women being treated for a condition such as
sickle cell anaemia , hypertension , heart disease
,diabetics this may cause a high risk pregnancy.

7. Purpose of Preconception care
Establish lifestyle behaviours to maintain optimum
health.
Identify & treat risk ( e.g. medical condition, substance
abuse ) before.
Conceive a pregnancy with out necessary risk factors.
Prepare people psychologically for pregnancy & the
responsibilities to become with parenthhood.

8. Why preconception care?
 Preconception care has a positive effect on a range of health outcomes.
Among others, preconception care can:
 • reduce maternal and child mortality
 • prevent unintended pregnancies
 • prevent complications during pregnancy and delivery
 • prevent stillbirths, preterm birth and lowbirth weight
 • prevent birth defects
 • prevent neonatal infections
 • prevent underweight and stunting
 • prevent vertical transmission of HIV/STIs
 • lower the risk of some forms of childhood
cancers
 • lower the risk of type 2 diabetesand
cardiovascular disease later in life.

9. Areas addressed by the preconception care package
 Nutritional conditions
 Vaccine- preventable diseases
 Genetic conditions
 Environmental health
 Infertility/ subfertility
 Female genital mutilation
 Too early, unwanted and rapid successive pregnancies
 Sexually transmitted infections
 Human immunodefi ciency virus (HIV)
 Interpersonal violence
 Mental health
 Psychoactive substance use
 Tobacco use

10. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Nutritional conditions  Screening for anaemia and
diabetes ƒ
 Supplementing iron and
folic acid ƒ
 Information, education and
counselling ƒ
 Monitoring nutritional status ƒ
 Supplementing energy and
nutrient-dense food ƒ
 Management of diabetes,
including counselling people
with diabetes mellitus ƒ
 Promoting exercise
 ƒIodization of salt

11. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Tobacco use  ƒScreening of women and girls
for tobacco use (smoking and
smokeless tobacco) at all clinical
visits using “5 As” (ask, advise,
assess, assist, arrange)
 ƒProviding brief tobacco cessation
advice, pharmacotherapy
(including nicotine replacement
therapy, if available) and
intensive behavioural counselling
services ƒ
 Screening of all non-smokers
(menand women) and advising
about harm of second-hand
smoke and harmful effects on
pregnant women and unborn
children

12. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Genetic conditions  ƒTaking a thorough family
history to identify risk
factors for genetic
conditions
 ƒFamily planning
 ƒGenetic counselling
 ƒCarrier screening and
testing ƒ
 Appropriate treatment of
genetic conditions ƒ
 Community-wide or
national screening among
populations at high risk

13. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Environmental health  Providing guidance and
information on environmental
hazards and prevention
 ƒProtecting from unnecessary
radiation exposure in
occupational, environmental and
medical settings ƒ
 Avoiding unnecessary pesticide
use/providing alternatives to
pesticides ƒProtecting from lead
exposure
 ƒInforming women of
childbearing age about levels of
methyl mercury in fish ƒ
 Promoting use of improved stoves
and cleaner liquid/gaseous fuels

14. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Infertility/sub-fertility  ƒCreating awareness and
understanding of fertility and
infertility and their preventable
and unpreventable causes. ƒ
 Defusing stigmatization of
infertility and assumption of fate. ƒ
 Screening and diagnosis of couples
following 6–12 months of
attempting pregnancy, and
management of underlying causes
of infertility/sub-fertility,
including past STIs. ƒ
 Counselling for
individuals/couples diagnosed
with unpreventable cause of
infertility/sub-fertility.

15. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Interpersonal violence  Health promotion to prevent dating
violence ƒ
 Providing age-appropriate comprehensive
sexuality education that addresses gender
equality, human rights, and sexual
relations ƒ
 Combining and linking economic
empowerment, gender equality and
community mobilization activities ƒ
 Recognizing signs of violence against
women ƒ
 Providing health care services (including
post-rape care), referral and psychosocial
support to victims of violence ƒ
 Changing individual and social norms
regarding drinking, screening and
counselling of people who are problem
drinkers, and treating people who have
alcohol use disorders

16. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Too-early, unwanted and
rapid successive
pregnancies
 ƒKeeping girls in school
 ƒInfluencing cultural norms that support
early marriage and coerced sex ƒ
 Providing age-appropriate
comprehensive sexuality education ƒ
 Providing contraceptives and building
community support for preventing early
pregnancy and contraceptive provision
to adolescents
 ƒEmpowering girls to resist coerced sex ƒ
 Engaging men and boys to critically
assess norms and practices regarding
gender-based violence and coerced sex ƒ
 Educating women and couples about the
dangers to the baby and mother of short
birth intervals

17. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Sexually transmitted
infections (STIs)
 ƒProviding age-appropriate
comprehensive sexuality education
and services ƒ
 Promoting safe sex practices
through individual, group and
community-level behavioural
interventions ƒ
 Promoting condom use for dual
protection against STIs and
unwanted pregnancies ƒ
 Ensuring increased access to
condoms ƒ
 Screening for STIs ƒ
 Increasing access to treatment and
other relevant health services

18. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 HIV  Family planning ƒ
 Promoting safe sex practices and dual
method for birth control (with condoms)
and STI control ƒ
 Provider-initiated HIV counselling and
testing, including male partner testing ƒ
 Providing antiretroviral therapy for
prevention and pre-exposure
prophylaxis ƒ
 Providing male circumcision
 ƒProviding antiretroviral prophylaxis for
women not eligible for, or not on,
antiretroviral therapy to prevent mother-
to-child transmission ƒ
 Determining eligibility for lifelong
antiretroviral therapy

19. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Mental health  ƒAssessing psychosocial problems ƒ
 Providing educational and
psychosocial counselling before
and during pregnancy ƒ
 Counselling, treating and
managing depression in women
planning pregnancy and other
women of childbearing age ƒ
 Strengthening community
networks and promoting women’s
empowerment
 ƒImproving access to education for
women of childbearing age ƒ
 Reducing economic insecurity of
women of childbearing age

20. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Psychoactive
substance use
 ƒScreening for substance use ƒ
 Providing brief interventions
and treatment when needed ƒ
 Treating substance use
disorders, including
pharmacological and
psychological interventions ƒ
 Providing family planning
assistance for families with
substance use disorders
(including postpartum and
between pregnancies) ƒ
 Establishing prevention
programmes to reduce
substance use in adolescents

21. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Vaccine-
preventable
diseases
 ƒVaccination against rubella ƒ
 Vaccination against tetanus
and diphtheria ƒ
 Vaccination against Hepatitis
B

22. The COMPONENTS of preconception care
 Female genital mutilation
(FGM)
 ƒDiscussing and discouraging
the practice with the girl and
her parents and/ or partner ƒ
 Screening women and girls for
FGM to detect complications ƒ
 Informing women and couples
about complications of FGM
and about access to treatment ƒ
 Carrying out defibulation of
infibulated or sealed girls and
women before or early in
pregnancy ƒ
 Removing cysts and treating
other complications

23. Promotion of a women for healthy pregnancy
 Folic acid
 Proper immunization for the women
 Healthy behaviours
 Other nutritional supplements
 Blood tests
 Other check up

24. Steps can the women can take to improve health before
pregnancy
Eat a well balanced diet.
Drink plenty of water
Take nutritional supplements wisely
Quit or cut down smoking cigarettes
Avoid caffeine
Avoid alcohol
Avoid medication
Avoid contact with chemicals

25. Steps can the women can take to improve health before
pregnancy
 If have a cat, get someone else to empty the
kitty litter due to the risk of infection with
toxoplasmosis.
 If exercising make sure to wear cool ,
comfortable cloth ing & drink plenty of water.
 If do not exercise , try to start a reasonable &
regular exercise routine.
 Visit a health care practitioner specializing in
preconception care.

26. PRECONCEPTION CARE FOR MEN
STOP SMOKING
USE MOBILE PHONESONLY WHEN NEEDED
AVOID INCREASED TEMPERATURE AROUND GENITALS
CUT BACK ON CAFFINE
AVOID MEDICINES THAT IMPAIR FERTILITY & DESIRE SEX
DESIRE
INCULCATE A RELAXING SCHEDULE
STOP CONSUMING ALCOHOL & STEROIDS
MAINTAIN A HEALTHY WEIGHT
PLAN FOR FINANCES
THINK ABOUT PARENTING