Maternal and paternal nutrition before conception

Joong Shin Park

doi:10.5124/jkma.2011.54.8.818

J Korean Med Assoc > Volume 54(8); 2011 > Article

Park: Maternal and paternal nutrition before conception

Focused Issue of This Month

Baby plan

Journal of the Korean Medical Association

Journal of the Korean Medical Association 2011; 54(8): 818-824.

Published online: August 09, 2011

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2011.54.8.818

Maternal and paternal nutrition before conception

Joong Shin Park, MD

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Joong Shin Park, jsparkmd@snu.ac.kr

Received May 16, 2011 Accepted May 30, 2011

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Optimizing the health of the mother and father before conception is important for pregnancy outcomes. Maternal and paternal nutritional status before conception has been known to affect the outcomes of spontaneous pregnancy and intrauterine fetal growth and development. Moreover, the fetal environment appears to affect the subsequent infant and childhood development, and it seems to have permanent impact on adult health as well. The ideal dietary advice before and during pregnancy would be to encourage the parents-to-be to have a healthy, balanced diet composed of iron- and folate-rich foods. All women who are planning a pregnancy or capable of becoming pregnant should be counseled to take daily folic acid (0.4 mg) to reduce the risk of neural tube defects. Also, in addition to taking folic acid, all pregnant women as well as women planning pregnancy should be screened for anemia and those with iron deficiency anemia should be treated with supplemental iron even before conception and throughout the whole pregnancy. Semen quality is an example of a paternal factor affected by nutritional status. Efforts to achieve good maternal and paternal nutritional status during preconception as well as throughout gestation best assure a good milieu for fetal growth and development. Therefore, the provision of preconception nutritional counseling is essential for the improvement of pregnancy outcomes.

Preconception counseling; Nutrition; Pregnancy; Fetal development

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Table 1

Mini Dietary assessment index

Healthy diet score >30.

From Kim WY, et al. Korean J Nutr 2003;36:83-92, with permission from Korean Nutrition Society [4].

Table 2

Dietary reference intakes for Koreans [40]