China News Service, Shanghai, September 12 (Li Qiuying) September 12 is China’s Birth Defects Prevention Day. From preventing birth defects to promoting early life development, eugenics and education in the new era are moving towards more comprehensive and long-term health goals. "On the clinical frontline of obstetrics, what we protect is not only to ensure that children are born safely, but also to ensure that every child is born healthy and every mother is healthy for a long time. The prevention and control of birth defects does not start during pregnancy, but should be planned in advance from the pregnancy preparation stage, throughout pregnancy and extending to postpartum, becoming an important part of full-cycle health management." Professor Liu Ming, director of the Obstetrics Department of Dongfang Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University, said in an interview.
Professor Liu Ming, Director of the Department of Obstetrics, Dongfang Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University. Photo provided by interviewee
With the continuous upgrading of the concept of healthy reproduction, eugenics and eugenics have gradually extended to early life health management, covering pre-pregnancy preparation, pregnancy management and the long-term health of offspring, forming a full-cycle health management system that runs through the starting point of life.
Director Liu Ming said: "In long-term clinical practice of preventing and controlling premature births and managing high-risk pregnancies, we have observed that nutritional status and environmental exposure during the fetal period and early life may have long-term effects on an individual's future metabolism, cardiovascular, neurodevelopment and other aspects of health." Therefore, perinatal medicine focuses not only on "allowing children to be born safely", but more importantly, starting from the early stages of life to lay the foundation for the future health of mothers and infants.
Periconceptional nutrition is one of the most basic, most universal and operable intervention tools to achieve the goal of eugenics and postnatal care. Director Liu Ming pointed out: "The prevention and control of birth defects needs to be planned in advance from the pregnancy preparation stage, and scientific nutritional management should run through the entire process of pre-pregnancy and pregnancy. A reasonable diet is the foundation, and scientific supplementation of nutritional gaps can form a more complete nutritional management plan. According to " "Expert Consensus on Main Micronutrient Supplements Before Pregnancy and Pregnancy (2024)", for women without high-risk factors, they can start supplementing with 0.4-0.8 mg of folic acid or multivitamins containing folic acid at least 3 months before pregnancy, and continue to take it throughout pregnancy."
The upgrade of health concepts is also simultaneously promoting a deep change in pregnancy preparation models. Preparing for pregnancy is no longer a unilateral "task" for women, but a family health management process in which both husband and wife participate. "Pregnancy preparation is never a matter of one person." Director Liu Ming emphasized, "The male's age, lifestyle, nutritional status, tobacco and alcohol exposure, and chronic disease management level will also affect the probability of pregnancy and the quality of embryonic development. Ideally, both men and women can start relevant examinations 3 to 6 months before planned pregnancy and adjust their lifestyles together. The shift from 'female pregnancy preparation' to 'family pregnancy preparation' is an important manifestation of the upgrade of the concept of eugenics and eugenics."
The moment delivery ends does not mean the end of maternal and infant health management. Compared with the traditional concept of "recovering after confinement", the postpartum period is actually an important window for women to repair their bodies, psychologically adjust, establish breastfeeding, and reshape healthy habits. It is also a key extension of perinatal medicine from focusing on "safe delivery" to "full-cycle health management."
Postpartum health management does not just focus on wound recovery or changes in a single physical indicator, but covers multiple dimensions such as breast health, endocrine metabolism, nutritional status, mental health, lifestyle and reproductive health. Director Liu Ming said that a more scientific and continuous management model should be established to address the health needs at different stages of postpartum: in the early postpartum period, the focus is on the establishment of breastfeeding, physical recovery and emotional changes; traditional understanding often only focuses on the 42-day postpartum review, but easily ignores the postpartum remodeling period of 3 months to 1 year, which is the golden window for women's physical and mental health recovery; as time goes by, we should continue to pay attention to women's long-term health risks, and help women achieve better recovery through lifestyle adjustments and health management.
From pre-pregnancy preparation to postpartum management, the key to promoting the concept of full-cycle health is to truly transform professional knowledge into healthy actions that the public can understand, use, and insist on. (over)
