Pre-Conception Counseling in New Jersey
If your plans for the future involve becoming a parent, consider pre-conception counseling in partnership with a healthcare professional. Receiving counseling well before you receive a positive test can better prepare you for pregnancy and help ensure the health of you and your baby. At Vanguard Medical Group, we offer pre-conception counseling to patients throughout New Jersey as part of our comprehensive women’s health services.
What Is Pre-Conception Counseling?
It’s important to ensure your body is ready to become pregnant and pre-conception counseling helps you prepare for a healthy pregnancy ahead of time. Several milestones in fetal development occur within the first few weeks of pregnancy, so early pre-pregnancy support and monitoring can play a key role in the health of you and your baby.
During an appointment, patients have the opportunity to discuss various health concerns with our women’s health specialists, including:
- Personal medical history: This may include surgeries, pre-existing conditions, immunizations, allergies, and other health-related items. Patients also discuss previous pregnancies, their menstrual cycle, contraceptive use, STDs, and other areas of gynecological history.
- Family medical history: Congenital conditions, the tendency for twins/multiples, diabetes, and other relevant parts of your family’s history, may be discussed. This helps patients prepare for the possibility of any conditions that may be passed on to a child.
- Lifestyle: Your provider may also discuss any lifestyle choices related to smoking, drug use, nutritional wellness, exercise, environmental factors, and other areas of note.
Your appointment may also include a physical examination and laboratory tests to check for different conditions. Your physician can teach you how to chart your menstrual cycle and pinpoint when you typically ovulate each month to help ensure the best chances of conception.
Benefits of Pre-Pregnancy Counseling
Whether you already have children or this is your first time, one of the most important things you can do is prepare your mind and body for pregnancy. This means different things for different patients. Knowing your risk factors ahead of time can provide peace of mind and help you and your physician create a plan going forward. Pre-conception counseling can help in several ways, including:
- Identifying risk factors that may affect you or your unborn child
- Finding ways to effectively manage chronic health conditions
- Addressing possible infertility and age-related concerns
- Making informed lifestyle choices
- Pinpointing potential environmental risks, job-related or otherwise
- Implementing meaningful dietary, medication, and exercise changes
If meaningful lifestyle changes and interventions need to be made, they can be discussed at your appointment. Our women’s health specialists may recommend the following:
- Taking prenatal vitamins
- Maintaining a healthy weight
- Keeping various medical conditions under control
- Quitting smoking
- Discontinuing the use of certain prescribed and un-prescribed drugs
- Updating immunizations
At Vanguard Medical Group, our health specialists take a women-centered approach to care. Our pre-conception counseling appointments are conducted by caring, knowledgeable healthcare professionals, and recommendations are tailored to the individual needs of each patient.
Schedule Your Pre-Pregnancy Counseling Appointment
If you’re thinking about conceiving within the next few years, let us help you create a plan focused on your reproductive health. Request a pre-conception counseling appointment at one of our locations in throughout northern and central NJ today.
