A Healthy Pregnancy Starts Before You’re Pregnant: A Preconception Checklist
A healthy pregnancy doesn’t start when the test turns positive. Months before you begin sampling nursery room paint colors and planning baby shower games, your main priority should be optimizing your health.
Key steps include:
The Preconception Visit
Your first action item is to schedule a preconception visit to:
- Review your medical history
- Manage chronic conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes
- Confirm medications for pregnancy safety
- Check vaccination status
- Discuss your overall health goals
The earliest weeks of pregnancy are the most critical for healthy fetal development, so starting with your health can make a big difference.
Prenatal Vitamins
You should ideally begin taking a prenatal vitamin about one month before conception.
Many experts even recommend that any woman of reproductive age who could become pregnant start taking a prenatal vitamin regularly.
Most prenatal vitamins contain 400 micrograms of folic acid, which is key in the first 28 days of pregnancy to reduce the risk of neural tube defects affecting the baby’s brain and spine.
These structures develop very early, often before you've even missed your period, making early supplementation essential.
Healthy Weight Habits
Being either underweight or overweight can affect fertility, pregnancy risks, and delivery outcomes. Having an unhealthy weight can influence ovulation, hypertension, diabetes, preeclampsia, and cesarean delivery risk.
During pregnancy, your provider will discuss an individualized weight gain goal depending on your starting BMI.
The goal isn’t perfection, but sustainable, healthy habits including a nutritious diet and regular exercise.
Substance Use
Before you and your partner conceive, it’s best for both of you to avoid:
- Alcohol
- Marijuana
- Tobacco
- Vaping
These substances can impact fertility, increase pregnancy risks, and affect fetal development.
There is no known safe amount of alcohol during pregnancy, and growing evidence suggests marijuana may impact fetal brain development.
If quitting is difficult, your provider can help connect you with support resources or connect you to the Cone Health R.E.A.C.H. Maternity Clinic at Center for Women's Healthcare for integrated prenatal care and substance use management beginning in pregnancy and continuing through 12 months postpartum.
Mental Health
One often over-looked aspect of pregnancy is mental health. Anxiety, depression, chronic stress, poor sleep, and emotional well-being all play a major role in physical health during pregnancy.
Get care now to significantly improve your experience during pregnancy, labor and postpartum.
First Prenatal Appointment
As soon as you confirm your pregnancy with an at-home-test, schedule your first prenatal appointment for about 8-10 weeks out.
If you have medical conditions or medication concerns, let the scheduler know so care can be arranged sooner. Start a prenatal vitamin right away if you haven’t already and make sure to continue taking any medications as prescribed. Your provider will discuss medication safety at your first prenatal visit as well as:
- Review your medical history including vaccination records
- Estimate your baby’s gestational age and due date, based on your last menstrual period and possibly an ultrasound
- Perform a physical exam
- Information on what you can do to keep yourself and your baby as healthy as possible throughout your pregnancy
Specialized Prenatal & Pregnancy Care
Cone Health offers traditional early prenatal care as well as:
CenteringPregnancy: Group prenatal care bringing together mothers due around the same time. A consistent provider facilitator and clinical staff facilitator will guide ten classes.
Mom+Baby Combined Care: Participating birthing parents and their babies receive health care services at the same visit. Parents will no longer split their care between an OB, a primary care physician and a pediatrician, but instead both the birthing parent and the baby will be seen by the same provider until age five.
High-Risk Pregnancy Care: Your pregnancy may be high-risk if you are younger than 17 or older than 35, have a preexisting health condition, are pregnant with multiples (twins, triplets or more), have gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, had a problem in a past pregnancy or your baby shows signs of a congenital anomaly.
Pregnancy & Parenting Classes
Take advantage of classes designed to help everyone in your family prepare for and adjust to life with a newborn. Explore Cone Health’s pregnancy and parenting classes in Greensboro and Burlington.
Next Steps
Good prenatal care goes beyond routine checkups. It focuses on caring for the whole person, building trust with your provider, and ensuring you feel informed, heard, and empowered at every visit.
Visit conehealth.com/prenatal to find a Cone Health OB/GYN office nearest you.
Watch the full WFMY 2 Your Well-Being conversation with Fran Cresenzo-Dishmon, certified nurse midwife with Cone Health Center for Women’s Healthcare at Family Tree, below.
