Pregnancy Preparedness: Top 10 Rules to Live By

In particular, be sensitive to what you expose yourself to during this time. Smoking, alcohol, and drugs are implicated in miscarriage as well as in abnormal pregnancies and pregnancy complications, which can be damaging to the babies ultimately born. This doesn't mean just heartbreak for you, but a difficult life for the person you bring into the world.

Even exposure to such substances for the man can have an impact, so it is best if a safe lifestyle is equally undertaken by both of you as prospective parents. Since the very egg you conceive with begins its maturation a few months before actually being released, reducing and eliminating exposure for three months before trying to conceive will allow conception with an unpolluted egg, so to speak.

Also, women should take at least 0.4 mg (400mcg) a day of folic acid before conception and through the early part of pregnancy. Folic acid lowers the chance of many major birth defects. This is the dose found in most over the counter mulitvitamin tablets. The "prenatal" versions have even more.