Knowing your family’s health history and making sure your own health is in order are important first steps in starting a family. Doctor Tamara Smith, Obstetrics and Gynecology at McDonough District Hospital, offers more preventative steps and discussions to have with your healthcare provider:
“One of the things is just eating healthy, exercising, watching your diet, and then also taking vitamins; the vitamins before you conceive. With reproductive years we recommend everybody that could possibly conceive to take a vitamin that has folic acid in it to prevent defects. I would schedule an appointment just to make sure pap smears are normal, there are no blood pressure issues, no other underlying chronic medical conditions that we can address before conception, like diabetes, making sure blood sugar is under control, all those things are great to look at or if there needs to be weight loss before pregnancy that would help an outcome. Those are all things we can look at before conception.”
Doctor Smith and the OB/GYN team at McDonough District Hospital are accepting new patients in Macomb and at the Monmouth Clinic.
