They are every woman s dream. While no one can promise you perfection, a wide range of medical advances can give you a precious degree of control over your child s future and your own health during pregnancy. The secret is preconceptional care. He or she can offer you testing, immunizations, counseling, nutritional therapy, or other treatment to help ward off problems before they happen. Don t be surprised if your health care provider offers you preconceptional care on a routine gynecologic visit.
Unintended pregnancies do happen.
Staying healthy and informed just in case while you are in your reproductive years can be a big benefit. In addition, your healthcare provider can offer you valuable general or pre-pregnancy contraceptive advice during your preconceptional visit. Before you realize you ve even missed a menstrual period as early as 17 days after sperm and ovum meet the cells of the rapidly growing life within you are starting to differentiate into tissue that will form your baby s heart and other organs. Most fetal development, in fact, occurs within the three months after conception. The baby s heart begins to beat after 4 weeks.