Pregnancy Matters: It’s Never Too Early to Be Healthy! | Health Trends in Early Childhood Education (ECE) – November 2025

Experiencing excessive stress, poor nutrition, or toxic environmental exposures during pregnancy can affect fetal development, with long-lasting impacts into adulthood, such as increased risk for heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and mental health conditions. 

Pregnancy-related deaths occur during pregnancy, delivery, and up to 1 year postpartum.  Maternal Mortality Review Committees (2017–2019) determined that over 80% of pregnancy-related deaths were preventable.   Four in 5 pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are preventable _ CDC Archive.pdf

Underlying causes of pregnancy-related death include:

• Mental health conditions (23%), including deaths to suicide and overdose/poisoning related to substance use disorder
• Excessive bleeding (hemorrhage) (14%)
• Heart conditions (13%)
• Infection (9%)
• Blood clots (9%)
• Cardiomyopathy (a disease of the heart muscle) (9%)
• Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (relating to high blood pressure) (7%)

Help prevent pregnancy-related deaths

Be aware of urgent warning signs and symptoms during pregnancy and in the year after delivery. Signs and Symptoms of Urgent Maternal Warnings Signs | HEAR HER Campaign | CDC

Help support a healthy pregnancy

See March of Dimes: Help us improve the health of all moms and babies | March of Dimes

• It Starts With Mom | March of Dimes
• Navigating your pregnancy | March of Dimes

Get early, trusted, regular, and supportive prenatal care

Find supportive and trusted healthcare providers who provide emotional, physical, and informational support during pregnancy, delivery and after childbirth. Perinatal and Parenting Support | Department of Human Services | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Listen to the concerns of people who are pregnant and have been pregnant during the last year and help them get the care they need. See Pennsylvania’s Action Plan for Maternal Health: action-plan-for-maternal-health-final.pdf

• Doula professionals can reduce rates of cesarean delivery, improve newborn health, improve patients’ ratings of the childbirth experience, and benefit infants through high rates of breastfeeding initiation in the postpartum period. Pennsylvania Doula Commission

Eat healthy

Eat a well-balanced diet and take prenatal vitamins.

• See Nutrition During Pregnancy | ACOG
• Advice about Eating Fish | FDA
• PA WIC Program: Welcome to Pennsylvania WIC
• PA Food Banks: Food Banks Archive – Feeding Pennsylvania

Get Dental Care  

It is safe and important to get dental care during pregnancy.

• Healthy Habits for Happy Smiles | HeadStart.gov
• Taking Care of Your Oral Health When You Are Pregnant | HeadStart.gov

Prevent Infections

• Maintain good hygiene. Wash your hands and if soap and running water are not available, use hand sanitizer.  It can help prevent congenital cytomegalovirus infection which is the most common infectious cause of birth defects. See Information for Child Care and Education Professionals – MN Dept. of Health
• Avoid people who have an infection. Chickenpox can cause pregnancy complications and birth defects; rubella can cause serious birth defects and increase risk for miscarriage or stillbirth. Vaccines During Pregnancy: Keeping You & Your Baby Healthy – HealthyChildren.org
• Cook meat until it’s well done. The meat juices should run clear and there should be no pink inside. Undercooked meats and processed meats might contain Listeria monocytogenes. 
  • Listeriosis is one of the most serious types of food poisoning. Pregnant women are 10 times more likely to get listeriosis than the general population. Listeriosis can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, or preterm
• Avoid unpasteurized (raw) milk and foods made from it. Unpasteurized (raw) products can contain harmful bacteria.
• Protect against insects known to carry diseases.Infected mosquitos can transmit the Zika virus, which is linked to birth defects. See zika-virus-pregnancy.pdf
• Do not touch or change cat litter and avoid contact with potentially contaminated soil.  Dirty cat litter and soil might contain a harmful parasite that causes an infection called toxoplasmosis.

Avoid Harmful Toxins

Toxins include lead, gasses, solvents, pesticides, asbestos and other substances.

• See MotherToBaby: Fact Sheets – Pregnancy and Breastfeeding Exposures | MotherToBaby
• Fact Sheets | Department of Health | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Prevent Lead Poisoning

• See PA Lead Free Promise Project: Homepage – Lead Free Promise Project

Doula care and maternal health: an evidence review – Digital Collections – National Library of Medicine

​​​​​​​HAP Report Outlines Plan of Action to Improve Maternal Health Outcomes Across Pennsylvania – HAP

• Pennsylvania’s Action Plan for Maternal Health: action-plan-for-maternal-health-final.pdf

Pregnancy-Related Deaths: Data From Maternal Mortality Review Committees in 36 U.S. States, 2017–2019: Four in 5 pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are preventable _ CDC Archive.pdf

Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA Network Open. October 15, 2025. First-Trimester mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination and Risk of Major Congenital Anomalies. In this nationwide cohort study of 527,564 live-born infants, 130,338 (24.7%) were exposed to an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine during the first trimester of pregnancy. There was no association with an increased risk for 75 different major congenital malformations, whether examined overall, grouped by organ systems, or individually.