Once expected to not survive childhood, youth with perinatally-acquired HIV have now reached young adulthood are of reproductive age and sexually active. Given the health impact of pregnancy among YPHIV, understanding reproductive decision making may inform preconception counseling strategies. Most literature regarding reproductive health among YPHIV focuses on women, overlooking one of the mos...

BACKGROUND Promotion of healthy pregnancies has gained high priority in the Netherlands because of the relatively unfavourable perinatal health outcomes. In response a nationwide study Healthy Pregnancy 4 All was initiated. This study combines public health and epidemiologic research to evaluate the effectiveness of two obstetric interventions before and during pregnancy: (1) programmatic preco...

Zinc is essential for normal fetal growth and development and for milk production during lactation. The metabolic adjustments made in zinc utilization to meet these needs have not been described. The purpose of this study was to determine whether fractional zinc absorption (FZA) is altered during pregnancy and lactation and, if so, to determine whether the change is related to maternal zinc sta...

BACKGROUND Prenatal and postnatal polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) exposure has been associated with decrements in fetal and infant growth and development, although exposures during the preconception window have not been examined despite recent evidence suggesting that this window may correspond with the highest serum concentrations. OBJECTIVES We assessed maternal serum PCB concentrations at ...

Introduction: The aim of the study was to evaluate preconception risk factors that may adversely affect pregnancy outcomes, and care practices.
 Methods: A descriptive completed with 359 women. data were collected a questionnaire drawn up by researchers.
 Results: Findings demonstrated advanced age (20.6%), smoking (23.1%), existence chronic illness (23.6%) being overweight (26.7%). A...

The notion of preconception care aims to target the existing risks before pregnancy, whereby resources may be used to improve reproductive health and optimize knowledge before conceiving. The preconception period provides an opportunity to intervene earlier to optimize the health of potential mothers (and fathers) and to prevent harmful exposures from affecting the developing fetus. These inter...

Health care leaders in the United States have recently advised that preconception care be made available to all prospective parents because health in pregnancy depends on health status prior to pregnancy. Prenatal care usually begins after the early critical period of pregnancy has passed, and optimal early prenatal care can be achieved only through preconception care. Family physicians, who ar...

In the United States, Black infants have significantly worse birth outcomes than White infants. Over the past decades, public health efforts to address these disparities have focused primarily on increasing access to prenatal care, however, this has not led to closing the gap in birth outcomes. We propose a 12-point plan to reduce Black-White disparities in birth outcomes using a life-course ap...

Interest in preconceptional healthcare was advanced by release of the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its Select Panel on Preconception Care in 2006. With increasing interest, apprehension surfaced from healthcare professionals, women, and the public at large. The most common themes of concerns are that an emphasis on preconception care is pronatalist...