One of the supplementation that need to be taken prior to the plan of conception is folic acid. Folic acid should be consumed 3 months before the beginning of pregnancy to make sure the baby's neural tube would not get defect and her/his brain well developed.
During the pregnancy, the pregnant mother also need to obtain other abundant nutrition. Basically, they do not need any kind of additional supplementation if their meals are closely concerned. In fact, most of the Indonesian mother do not have enough basal nutrition as they tend to choose food that make them stay full instead of food that fullfill the nutrition list. For instance, prior researches conducted in Jakarta found that more than 50% womenin Jakarta is in anaemia condition due to iron deficiency.Â
Sadly, Jakarta respresents a metropolitan city where nutritious foods are effortlessly obtained. This condition occurred because they do not consume enough meal containing iron such as meat and poultry, whereas they lose their blood monthly through their period which decrease their iron levels in their body.Â
Iron actually is one of the most important nutrition needed for pregnant woman. If they have lack iron level through their pregnancy, the chance of having preterm, low birth weight or growth retardation baby increase.
We have not talked about the mental health issue. Pregnancy is indeed a plentiful imbalance hormonal condition that can come out as mental health problems.Â
People around pregnant woman are required to espouse this altered circumstances without judging or punishing her peculiarity. If a pregnant woman reveal some symptomps which bothering their daily activity, an appointment to meet the doctor become necessary.
Previous study run in Indonesia prove that babies with multiple problems caused by unprepared pregnancy tend to have lower IQ and EQ, they also have bigger chance to develop metabolic disease such as hypertension or diabetes when they grow as an adult.Â
In other words, if a country want to have higher quality of human resources who can earn much for country's income, they need to prepare them before they are born.
Other developed country such as Japan has implemented many regulation to support pregnant women getting proper antenatal care. They has understood that nutrition during pregnancy is primary necessity so they keep watching closely every pregnant women's meals to lower the needs of giving additional supplementation as they can gain full nutrition from their foods.Â
Furthermore, they make antenatal examination is easily attained by each pregnant women, such as ultrasonography examination or USG. They have already known that USG is not a probe which only reveal baby's gender, but also to detect any growth defect so it can be treated earlier. Thus, this examination has to be performed as early as pregnancy detected.
Looking at the considerable preparation required to start a pregnancy mentioned above, the newly wed have to think thrice before making a decision. Being pregnant is not a competition and it should not be a rush after marriage.Â