- The ARC - California Edition -

Decreasing the Chance

"It is widely known" that men and women can personally do things which will reduce their chance of giving birth to a damaged child. Everyone advises young couples that they should stop drinking and smoking. You read an article recommending that you take vitamin pills - especially folic acid. And you can remember that there are other things that you’ve heard about or read about which should be done. But what are these things? And when do you do them?

Often pregnancy comes along and about 3 or 4 months later the mother-to-be finally gets an appointment with the doctor and then asks, "What should I do to minimize the chance of having a baby with birth defects?"

"Well," the doctor responds, "You should have started getting prepared for this pregnancy about 6 months ago."

This issue of The Prevention News will bring focus to the kinds of actions that men and women can personally do to reduce the chance of procreating a damaged child. Within these pages you will find a reprint of a single article recently published in the FDA Consumer magazine.

The title of the article is "Decreasing The Chance of Birth Defects." Birth defects are generally defined as observable and detectable defects at the time of birth and are mostly physical in nature. Prenatal damage to the brain of a child - often referred to as mental retardation - is not as easy to identify during the early days after a infant’s birth. But almost all of the points made in this article directly apply to reducing the risk of both physical and mental defects of the offspring.

There are a couple of points that I would make. First, both prospective parents should learn what can be done well before pregnancy, and second, then they should take the responsibility to prepare themselves BEFORE the pregnancy, as well as DURING the pregnancy.

"Peter Leibert"