{"id":46456,"date":"2013-05-22T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T16:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=46456"},"modified":"2013-05-21T16:13:13","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T20:13:13","slug":"show-your-love-the-importance-of-healthy-habits-before-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=46456","title":{"rendered":"Show Your Love: The Importance of Healthy Habits Before Pregnancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Healthy Communities<\/p>\n

By Chrystal Johnson<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(May 2013) Jen has always known t\"Chrystal<\/a>hat children were in her plans for the future. Two years ago, she and her husband, Dave, began planning for their first baby. \u201cA friend told me that getting as healthy as possible before becoming pregnant could help me have a healthier pregnancy and baby.\u201d Jen spoke with her doctor and began taking steps to improve her health. \u201cDave and I began walking after dinner every night, and eating healthier.\u00a0 I started taking folic acid every day.\u201d Jen and Dave welcomed a healthy 7 pound 8 ounce baby boy this past March.<\/p>\n

Show Your Love is a new national campaign developed by the Preconception Health and Health Care Initiative. Its goal is to help women prepare for healthy pregnancies and babies by adopting healthy habits well before becoming pregnant.\u00a0 By adopting healthy habits, women are showing their love to their future babies and also to themselves.<\/p>\n

Preconception health is the health of women during their childbearing years before and in between pregnancies. As part of their preconception health, women can take steps now to protect their health and the health of the family they may want to have some time in the future.<\/p>\n

While most women know that improving their health once they become pregnant is important, many women don\u2019t know that improving their health before <\/i>pregnancy is a benefit to them and their babies. Taking steps to become as healthy as possible \u2013 even before pregnancy is being considered \u2013 plays an important role in the health of the mother-to-be and her future baby.<\/p>\n

Taking a few steps toward becoming healthier before pregnancy, such as working with your doctor to control and treat medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, quitting smoking, becoming physically active, making healthy food choices, and avoiding alcohol if trying to get pregnant can bring a lifetime of benefits to her and her future babies. Healthier women have less chance of having other problems with pregnancy, such as gestational diabetes, miscarriage, or preterm labor. Their babies have less chance for problems, such as preterm birth, low birth weight, high birth weight, or stillbirth.<\/p>\n

And for those women who don\u2019t want to start a family, our message is that they should be healthy and love and take care of themselves \u2014so they can achieve their goals and dreams.<\/p>\n

The Show Your Love campaign encourages all women of childbearing age to take steps improve their health before <\/i>getting pregnant. As part of the campaign, the Initiative has developed a series of educational materials, posters, a checklist of healthy habits, as well as online ads and a kit for organizations interested in supporting the campaign and helping to spread the word about the importance of preconception health.<\/p>\n

Our message to women who want to become mothers some day is that by taking important steps to improve their health before pregnancy, they can begin showing love for themselves and their babies before they\u2019re born. Their bodies and their babies will thank them for it. And because 49% of pregnancies in the U.S. are not planned, we urge all women of childbearing age to take steps to improve their health now.<\/p>\n

For more information on the Show Your Love campaign visit the website at www.cdc.gov\/showyourlove<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chrystal Johnson is a public health educator for Madison County.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Healthy Communities By Chrystal Johnson (May 2013) Jen has always known that children were in her plans for the future. Two years ago, she and her husband, Dave, began planning for their first baby. \u201cA friend told me that getting as healthy as possible before becoming pregnant could help me have a healthier pregnancy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-c5i","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}