Pregnancy planning is as crucial as conceiving or giving birth to a child. The best period to start your planning is 3 months before you want to conceive. This is a good time to adjust your lifestyle for ensuring a healthy 9 months ahead.

Get Tested For Infections Or Diseases – If you are living a healthy lifestyle, this test may not be necessary but it does no harm to be tested and rest assured that you are fine and will not pass on any unwanted diseases to your unborn baby. Some of the ailments that you need to test yourself for are Anaemia, Thalassaemia, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), and Rubella. Usually simple blood tests are needed to confirm the existence or absence of these diseases.

Start Your Folic Acid Supplement –Your Gynaecologist will ask you to take Folic Acid Supplements as this will help prevent some serious ‘Neural Tube Defects’ in the infant. These are to be started three months before you plan for a baby. The U.S. Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that every woman who is planning a pregnancy should consume 400 micrograms (0.4 milligrams) of folic acid everyday.

Get Rid Of Those Addictions Or Bad Habits – If pregnancy planning is on your agenda, now is the best time to kick those addictions. Smoking and drinking not only have an adverse effect on your health but will also affect your unborn child. Research has shown a large number of infants are born with physical defects to smoking mothers. Too much of caffeine can also lead to infertility.

Exercise And Eat Healthy – Working out everyday keeps your mind and body fit and active. Binging once in a while will do you no harm but if you are obese, you had better watch out, the weighing scale never lies! You will need to reduce your weight first before working on pregnancy planning. Chances of an obese woman conceiving are much lesser than that of a woman of average weight.

Keep Your Environment Safe – At work, if you are exposed to chemicals or fumes that are dangerous or you have to work with animals like cats or sheep that are carriers of harmful germs, you may want to think about a job change when you start your pregnancy planning.

Enjoy Making Love – Don’t turn sex a mundane chore. Make love as often as possible during your fertile period and enjoy it every time you do it. Another thing, don’t be in a hurry to wash up after intercourse. It is recommended that you lie down for a while after sex, so as to give more sperms the opportunity of catching up with the egg, thus increasing your chances at conceiving.

A normal fertile couple can take up to an year to conceive. So hang in there and enjoy the love in the air. Don’t forget, pregnancy planning is just the beginning to a lovely eventful life ahead!