Periconceptional care and offspring health at birth and long term, from the perspective of Avicenna

Publication date: Available online 11 January 2019Source: Journal of Integrative MedicineAuthor(s): Mohammad Ansaripour, Mohsen Naseri, Mohammad Mahdi Esfahani, Iraj Nabipour, Fatemeh Rakhshani, Arman Zargaran, Roya KelishadiAbstractPericonceptional care such as lifestyle plays an important impact role in offspring health. The aim of the present study was to clarify the perspective of Avicenna on periconceptional care. Avicenna (980–1037 A.D.) was one of the outstanding Persian physicians, who made great contributions to the field of medical sciences, in particular, obstetrics. In advance, Avicenna’s book, Canon of Medicine, was considered to find his perspectives on periconceptional care. Then, his ideas and theories were compared to the current findings by searching the keywords in main indexing systems including PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus and Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science as well as the search engine of Google Scholar. Current investigations show that gamete quality, pregnancy outcome, and offspring health at birth and long term depend on both parents’ lifestyle in pre- and periconceptional period, as well as the intrauterine environment. Avicenna believed that seminal fluid, sperm, ovum, and developing conditions in utero were influenced by the stages of food digestion and the function of some organs. On the other hand, food digestion and function of the organs also depend on each parent’s lifestyle and environmental factors. He mentioned 6 princ...
Source: Journal of Integrative Medicine - Category: Complementary Medicine Source Type: research