Maternal and paternal nutrition before conception

Optimizing the health of the mother and father before conception is important for pregnancy outcomes. Maternal and paternal nutritional status before conception has been known to affect the outcomes of spontaneous pregnancy and intrauterine fetal growth and development. Moreover, the fetal environment appears to affect the subsequent infant and childhood development, and it seems to have permanent impact on adult health as well. The ideal dietary advice before and during pregnancy would be to encourage the parents-to-be to have a healthy, balanced diet composed of ironand folate-rich foods. All women who are planning a pregnancy or capable of becoming pregnant should be counseled to take daily folic acid (0.4 mg) to reduce the risk of neural tube defects. Also, in addition to taking folic acid, all pregnant women as well as women planning pregnancy should be screened for anemia and those with iron deficiency anemia should be treated with supplemental iron even before conception and throughout the whole pregnancy. Semen quality is an example of a paternal factor affected by nutritional status. Efforts to achieve good maternal and paternal nutritional status during preconception as well as throughout gestation best assure a good milieu for fetal growth and development. Therefore, the provision of preconception nutritional counseling is essential for the improvement of pregnancy outcomes.