Prenatal Care

I’d like to start trying to get pregnant. I’m fairly healthy, but are there things you did before conceiving?

Our Mommy MD Guide’s reply: Yes, for example I lost a few extra pounds. Also, I don’t drink very often, but two days after I found out I was pregnant, I went on a previously planned trip with some friends to Mexico. One of my friends asked me to go have a cocktail with her. When we sat down and I ordered a lemonade, she looked at me and asked, “Are you pregnant?” I hadn’t planned on telling anyone that soon, but she guessed!

Plus, I try to do everything in moderation, so I don’t normally drink a lot of coffee. But prior to getting pregnant, I switched to half regular/half decaf.

Also, before I got pregnant, I started to limit the amount of certain types of fish that I ate. Although fish is very nutritious and a great source of  healthful things such as omega-3 fatty acids, fish can also contain mercury, which can affect a baby’s brain development and nervous system. According to the FDA, pregnant women should avoid eating fish with the highest possible mercury levels (including orange roughy, grouper, and king mackerel), limit high-level  mercury fish to three 6-ounce servings per month (including canned white albacore tuna, halibut, and lobster), and limit low-level mercury-containing seafood to six 6-ounce servings a month (such as snapper, blue and snow crab, and canned chunk light tuna).

—Monica Lee-Griffith, MD, a mom of one, an ob-gyn, and senior staff, Henry Ford Health System in metropolitan Detroit