"Not all adverse fetal outcomes can be detected before childbirth. Some can be detected. We do testing for thyroid, sugars so that we prevent these adverse fetal outcomes. If we know a preexisting problem in the mothers then we know there is a problem to look out for certain conditions, say for example, if a mother develops a viral infection like rubella, there are tests to see if the baby is affected and that will then predict if the baby is going to have a problem after it is being born or not. That is a rare incident. Routinely we do scans at 12 week and 5 months to check if the babies are normal. This is one of the main ways to check what is the outcome of the baby is going to be at 12 weeks we are going to do a Down’s syndrome screening, scan and blood test to see what the baby to see if the baby is normal with regards to Down’s syndrome. Again at 18 to 20 weeks, we do scan which we call as anomaly scan were we check to see if the baby is looking anatomically normal. Through our scanning doctor will do a whole lot of scans to see if the baby is normal, not all abnormalities are present at that time sometimes we see that affect the baby is growing there are some things that are not quite right as the baby is growing, but for the most part, most problems are detected, by the 5th month, and most of the tests are detected by the way of ultrasound scans"

"Lots of factors influence maternal health. The most common that is obvious to all of us is the weight and the anaemic status of the mother. There are women in the villages who are extremely underweight and they are barely around 30 kg and they deliver when they are 35 to 38 kilos. These are very malnourished women and they have protein energy malnutrition. They are severely anemic, their babies are very small and their babies are born anemic. So they have different set of problems. Whereas in our set up, where we see people with better socioeconomic problems, where we have other set of problems like obesity and diabetes, and these itself can create another set of problems that can cause other levels of complication like diabetes in mother, and diabetes in the baby and increasing the rise of diabetes in the baby as they grow up. The factors need to be addressed and if you are anaemic, it has to be corrected. Anaemia is one of the major problems we have looking at a women and looking at her weight is not correct. Another factor is exercise. You may be a normal height and weight ratio, but may be totally unfit. With regards to your fitness and that needs to be fixed. This is the basic facts, these are other factors to be addressed like epilepsy, there may be people with heart disease, or diabetes, thyroid problems. So this has to be address before the persons gets pregnant so that we can optimize their condition and we have less complicated pregnancy as we can hopefully can have a happy pregnancy and a happy baby and mother at the end of it"

"To improve Maternal Health means if you are planning for a pregnancy, I would suggest to see the obstetrician and gynecologists that they can make an assessment of your condition and see whether there are any other deficiencies that need to be corrected. If you have not had your vaccinations up to date, they can give you that and can reduce the risk of infection during pregnancy and infection affecting the baby during pregnancy. If they can asses if you are underweight and advice you with regards to your weight and if you are overweight or diabetic then you need to try and work on your weight and correct your sugars. Ofcourse the most important thing is that you shod be exercising everyday. Pregnancy and well being is of before pregnancy, during pregnancy and after pregnancy, man, woman and child, so if it is important to start look at exercise most patients don’t do exercise before they get pregnant and they suddenly they starts thinking about this diet, fitness, exercises during pregnancy and that is the wrong way of going about. So improve your health by eating healthy and thinking about diet and exercise before your pregnancy starts"